Chapter Eight #2
“I don’t think William was a bad man.”
She looked up. “How do you know about… Oliver…that gossipy
son of a bitch.”
She wasn’t wrong about that. Oliver did love to gossip.
“William’s a good man, but he wasn’t the right partner for you. They’re all
wrong until you find the right one. I wouldn’t even say wrong. They’re all
learning experiences. Some are tougher lessons than others. I had some good
relationships before Andrea. I didn’t even love her. I was dutiful. But I did
love Christopher. I loved that I had a son.”
Her arms tightened around him. “I’m sorry, Mal.”
Somehow it felt right to tell her things he would never have
told anyone before. “I’ve talked more about him in the last few weeks than in
the years after the divorce. I thought if I didn’t talk about it, that proved
it didn’t affect me. It proved I was strong.”
“Damn it. You’re supposed to be my rebellion, but you’re
dragging me right back into reasonableness.” She held him for a minute. “Can
you be my unreasonable thing for a few months? I have some hard decisions to
make, and I don’t want to be impulsive. But I also don’t want to hurt you. I
think I’m leaving.”
Not if he had anything to do with it. “Then let me top you
until you go.”
She didn’t say anything, simply nodded her head against his
chest.
He wanted to tilt that head up and kiss her, but she’d put
those boundaries in and he couldn’t cross them. His heart hurt at the thought
of her leaving, but he wanted her happy more than anything else, and that meant
getting her what she wanted.
“I had a hot scene planned for us, but I think you need
something else this evening.”
She tilted her head up and frowned. Now that was absolutely
adorable. She was cute when pouting. “I could use a hot scene.”
“No. What you need is a case.”
Now she backed away. “Damon doesn’t want me working cases.”
She didn’t understand. “Damon wants you to prove you know
what a good case is. And I believe he’s testing your persistence. Vivian, you
don’t have a military or law enforcement background.”
“I have a background in criminal psychology,” she said, her
chin coming up in the stubborn look he’d missed the last few days.
“You do and you’re smart, and now it’s time to prove how
tough you are. I’ve brought in twenty-two cases that Damon refused. Most of
them he was right to do it,” Mal explained. This had been his project during
all his free time. If he wasn’t with Vivian or working either at MTK or
Dominion, he was going over old cases. “Most of those cases should have been
handled by local law enforcement or they were cases that were going to go
nowhere and take up critical time and resources. But one of them he missed. One
of them is important, and I need you to figure out which one. Show Damon that
you can find what he didn’t see or rather what he should have checked back on.”
He could see her weighing the possibilities. “This is an
order, Sir?”
“It doesn’t have to be.”
“And if I do this, what do I get?”
“Mercenary little thing.” He let his voice go low, his eyes
straying down to where he could see the curve of her breasts hinted at through
the V-neck shirt she wore. “I don’t want to punish you for not getting it done.
You like punishment, and I want to get this done.”
Her eyes went slightly wary. “Why?”
“Because I plan to serve as your bodyguard for the whole
mission. It could get me out of going to a jungle with Ollie.” Funny how now he
was a bit pleased to have so much trauma to soften her up. “I lost my leg in a
jungle. I would prefer a posh hotel room with you.”
She looked back at the stack of folders and the laptop he’d
placed on the conference table and then back to him. “I will do it if only to
prove I can. I already got my ass kicked by my bestie today. Maybe this will
make her feel better. But I want something from you. I want you to take off
your clothes for me. All of them. The next time we play, you don’t drop your
pants down barely enough to get inside me. I want them off of you.”
His chest tightened. She wanted to see his leg. Or rather
lack thereof. “It’s not pretty.”
That earned him a bratty eye roll. “Good. You need something
to balance out all your hotness. I think about your leg, Mal. I think about
rubbing my pussy against it. I think about riding it until I come.”
Fuck all. His body felt like it might go up in flames. His
cock hardened to the point of pain. He couldn’t breathe thinking of how she
would look using his ruined leg as a sex toy.
Best damn thing that happened to him in a long time.
“Deal.”
She turned and walked to the conference table. “I know you
think it’s ugly, but I won’t. I wish you hadn’t lost it, but I’m looking on the
bright side, Sir.”
She opened the first folder, and he knew he was done for.
* * * *
Three hours later, the low thud from the dungeon
outside pulsed quietly here. Like a siren song she couldn’t answer right now.
She wanted to. She’d come tonight because she couldn’t think
of anything else to do, and at least she could get in a session.
She stopped. She wasn’t going to lie to herself. It had been
weeks, and it was time to stop with the bouts of self-pity. One thing. She was
giving herself one thing that was indulgent and possibly self-destructive and
that was Mal. She needed to be honest.
She’d come because she wanted to be near him. Even simply
knowing he was in the building somewhere learning how to fix a toilet made her
feel better.
Mal. She wasn’t even sure what she felt about what happened
between them hours before. Mal had been through so much, and he’d still found
his grace. She’d been wildly angry. That bitch. How could she do that? If
Andrea had simply asked for Mal’s help, he would have given it to her. He would
have stepped in and aided her and cared for his nephew, but she’d put him in a
position where his heart had been ripped out.
“You are terrible at this.”
She gritted her teeth and reminded herself that the young
woman seated at the opposite end of the table, a tablet in her hand, was
traumatized, too. She was fairly sure Sosa was playing some kind of game while
she ate chips and drank a soda.
“You don’t have to be in here,” Vivian pointed out.
Sosa’s lips curled up, and she set the tablet down. “I do. I
am not allowed on the dungeon floor. I do not understand this, but Oliver has
made himself clear. I am to stay virgin until he can auction me off to highest
bidder.”
All right. She was sometimes amusing. “I doubt Ollie is
planning an auction.”
Though it could be fun. She wondered what Mal would be
willing to pay for her. It could be a hot scene.
Her head tilted, and Sosa studied her for a moment. “I
thought you would make fun of the virgin part. Everyone does.”
“Who? I would like to talk to them.” It was a day for her to
feel rage.
Sosa’s expression turned thoughtful. “Not anyone here. Here
is weird. I make jokes and no one laughs.”
“Because you make jokes about terrible things, and I
understand that you need to. But Sosa, if you aren’t a virgin, I doubt that was
your choice. And if it was, then it might have been the only choice you could
make.”
Sosa’s head fell back. “You are no fun, Almost Doctor. You
are even less fun than Damon, and he is no fun at all.”
Vivian sat back and sighed. “Yeah, well I’m not going to be
having any fun tonight.”
Twenty-two cases. She’d been over all of them, and she
hadn’t found what Mal hinted at. Hinted? He’d flat out told her one would stand
out, and she still didn’t see it. He couldn’t have left a hint? Couldn’t have
put a sticker on one?
She’d read every file at least three times.
Missing persons who looked like they wanted to be missing.
Corporate espionage that didn’t have clear lines. Some people thought they
worked divorce cases.
Nothing stood out. She felt dumb.
She hadn’t lied. She did have a background in criminology.
Not merely from school. She’d grown up around her parents’ work. Her mother and
father had taught her so much, and she felt like she was failing.
She’d had hope, and Mal would be disappointed in her.
Sosa sighed and stood, walking over. “These are old cases?
The one no one wants? They give them to you? That feels like a statement.”
Vivian turned her way. She didn’t need commentary. “The
locker room is open. You could go sit in there until Sami’s through.”
Sosa was under strict surveillance after a couple of
assassination attempts. Apparently underground human trafficking rings didn’t
like it when their well-trained assets decided to quit.
She sank down to the seat beside Vivian and reached for a
file. “This seems like more fun. These are all rejected cases? Did they not
have the money to pay?”
“No. Most of them are corporate cases, and I assure you they
can pay. Damon does a lot of work for free if he thinks the case is worthy. But
there’s a reason these either weren’t accepted or they were given up on.”
Sosa opened the folder and seemed to glance through the
notes. “Why do you want this so badly? Is it the mommy issues?”
Vivian sighed and started to stand. She wasn’t getting
anywhere, and the last thing she needed was to be insulted by Sosa. “I’ll leave
you to your game.”
Sosa sighed, and her expression softened. “I’m sorry. It’s
hard to live in civilized world when I grow up in such an uncivil one. I am
curious. Your mother is impressive. I would want to be like her, too, but it
seems to me you have the perfect job. You don’t have to risk yourself.”
Vivian constantly found herself explaining this. “I don’t
feel the need to join the MI6 team. I want to support them in any way I can. I
want to work investigations for MTK. I like puzzles. I feel like this is
something I should do. I’ve spent all my time up to this point studying. I want
to take everything I learned and challenge myself.”
“You want to see if you’re as good as she was?” Sosa asked.
“I wouldn’t put it like that. I have this thing inside me,
and I want to see if I can do it. It’s a dream of mine, but sometimes dreams
don’t turn out the way we hoped they would.”
“Yes. I am well aware.” The words were soft, and Vivian