Chapter 4
four
. . .
Mia
He pulls me onto a little catamaran two rows away from Harvey’s yacht. I don’t dare look behind me. I picture Harvey or one of his henchmen watching our pathetic non-escape from the deck, smoking their cigars, sucking back yet another bottle of expensive whiskey I’ve never heard of.
“What the hell are you doing?” I whisper when I want to yell once he leads me down below. I shouldn’t have gone with him, but it’s too late now. He always clouds my judgment. “What is this?”
“Home,” he says with a shrug. He reaches for my hand, and I push him away. Do I want him to touch me? Yeah. I do. But I’ve got to get this wire off me first.
I shouldn’t have allowed this to happen, our entanglement: not at his cabin, not in Halo City, and definitely not today. As usual, Armin’s jeopardizing the whole investigation.
And I’m letting him. I sneak a glance at those broad shoulders while his back is to me. He’s busy powering on a digital display linked to a series of small cameras positioned around the boat, I realize.
If somebody comes looking for me, us, he’ll see it first.
He turns, his hands clenched, avoiding eye contact. He’s nervous. I can’t blame him. A couple months ago when he tried to protect me, I drugged him to get away.
If only I had a good dose of Rohypnol on me now, I’d do it again. And we’d both be better off for it.
“Where’s the bathroom?”
“Down the hall, on the left.” I close myself inside, pausing to wonder if he’s got other cameras, smaller ones, hidden around the boat too. But no, it’s not his style. From the moment we met, Armin dedicated himself to protecting me. He wouldn’t do anything to betray that trust.
My mind flits through all the times Armin has rushed to save my life, and my heart swells in my chest. And there you have it.
After a month of blotting him out of my consciousness, he’s under my skin, again.
I reach down my shirt and untape the microphone, yank it out from between my breasts and throw it into my purse, disgusted with myself.
I’ve let him come between me and the investigation, again.
I pound on the cold hardness of the vanity. At least I can punish the underside of my fist. I want to punish him. But I also want him inside me so bad it’s a need.
“Everything okay in there?”
“Fine,” I call out.
It’s not. I turn on the water and splash some on my face, trying to stop the spiral. While I do, my brain decides to replay all the times I’ve hate-fucked him.
And a couple other times I didn’t.
It’s okay to use him, I remind myself. He’s using me. I’m nothing more than a hobby to him, a project. In his mind, I’m a sex worker who needs to be saved. He’s a bored ex-sheriff who won the lottery, thinks he’s a low-level superhero now. Fell in love with a whore.
That’s all.
If he knew I was an FBI agent, not a prostitute, his dick would drop faster than…
…my panties, when I’m around him, another voice in my head says. A more honest one. One that whispers late at night, in the dark: sorry to break this to you, bitch, but you’re in love.
I ignore it and yank open the door. Armin’s where I left him, slumped on the bed now, peering up at me when I emerge, so I skulk back.
“Can’t stay away, can you?” I paste a sneer on my face. I can’t make this easy on him, not this time. I’ve been too welcoming, and it’s only going to get him killed, or blow the investigation, or both.
“No,” he says, and as usual, his humble honesty disarms me. “Are you okay, Mia?”
“Yes,” I say, without hesitation, but I fail to stifle the sigh that betrays me.
“You’re not tired, or hungry?”
Of course I’m both of those things and more. Tired, hungry, broken, so weary in my soul I don’t ever know how I put one foot in front of the other. I glare back at him. I won’t admit any weakness. Not willingly. He knows that.
“You wanna take a nap? Then eat?” He stands up and eases out of his ridiculous suit jacket, hangs it on an anchor-shaped hook by the bed. Got a dress shirt on underneath. Still looks like he’s headed to a gala in Halo City instead of lounging on the beach.
Well, he’s not, I suppose. He’s working. Here to protect me, yet again.
I’m drawn to him too, I don’t want to admit.
I find myself sidling up to him, unbuttoning the buttons on his fancy shirt, revealing the ripple of muscle underneath.
He’s gotten thicker, more built since we first met.
I let the shirt slide off him and run my hands over his chest. He sighs and pulls me to him, his hands clasping behind the small of my back, only for a moment, before he remembers how it scares me, any small pretense of capture, the slightest feeling of being boxed in.
So he lets go. He knows me really well, for a man who doesn’t know me at all.
He takes one of my hands in his and raises it to his lips, kissing my fingers. His eyes go glossy. “I missed you, Mia. I did.”
It breaks the spell on me when he calls me by the fake name I gave up at the club in East Greenwich, the name that’s followed me across three states, three arms of this investigation, three locations where Armin loved me as best he could, and then I ran.
I’m here for Harvey. That’s all. My love life doesn’t exist. It can’t.
“Let’s get some rest,” I say. I set my purse down on the little counter by the bedside, lift up the covers, and slide myself in.
Armin lays down next to me, bare-chested but still wearing those damn business pants.
Everything in me wants to unbutton them.
I dig deep, fighting my urges, fighting to ignore him.
I promise myself I’ll push him away. But when he gathers me into his arms and begins stroking my hair in that familiar way of his, I feel safe again for the first time in weeks.
I wake up, I bolt upright with a start, breathing heavy.
“It’s okay,” a deep voice says. “You’re safe.”
Armin.
He’s wrong of course. I’m not safe, and he’s not. What the hell was he thinking renting a boat at the same marina as Harvey, two rows down?
Always some measure of audacity, that’s him. Cowboy boots at the beach.
He doesn’t reach for me, this time, but he leaves himself open, chest still bare, dress pants rumpled.
I don’t go to him. My eyes water with the effort, but I pull away. I untangle myself from the sheets and take in the boat’s master cabin instead. It’s tidy, modestly luxurious. Nice attention to detail, nothing ostentatious like Harvey’s yacht. “You just get here?”
“A few days ago.”
“How’d you know where to find me?”
He pulls a small leather wallet off the end table and flips it open.
“Sunbreak Security?”
“The best of the best at the beach,” he says.
The corners of my lips twitch, but I won’t give him a smile. “Is that their motto?”
“Nah,” he scratches his stubble, and I remember in a flash how that feels between my thighs. That’s one way to forget this case completely. “I made that up for you.” He smiles, and winks.
He’s no crime boss, and he isn’t my FBI coworkers, either, and I’m already breathing easier. Most of the tension’s gone out of my shoulders.
And that’s what makes him the problem.
“I gotta go,” I say, running my fingers through my disheveled hair.
I’d rather be running them through his, and then smoothing them down his chest. The outline of his cock is thick through the fabric of his pants, and my desire to fuck over this case, to fuck him is growing, while he is, too, and it’s all I can do to keep from straddling his muscular thighs.
He sees my train of thought, where I couldn’t keep my eyes from straying. “Harvey’s yacht set sail about an hour ago,” he says.
I get up so I don’t get on him. “He’ll be back.”
“Late night cruise?”
“Body disposal. He does it every Tuesday.”
I’ve been telling Harvey my so-called testimony is nothing more than a double-cross, a way to stall the feds, keep them off his back. I have no idea if he buys it or not.
Maybe by now he knows I’m the feds, too.
If Armin hadn’t come along, tonight’s body could have been me.