49. Clara
Chapter 49
Clara
S aturday morning, I wake to find the results of Jansen’s secret mission scattered across the foot of my bed. My old coat and boots from my parents’ house sit on one side, while a new, full-length purple down puffer jacket with matching high-end black and purple snow boots, tags attached, sits on the other. I don’t know how he got them, but at least Trips’ feverish ramblings about girls’ boots make more sense.
The week passes in a blur with prep work on so many fronts, the house quiet with focused studying and planning.
By chance, only two of our cumulative twenty finals fall on the Wednesday and Thursday we’ll be in Chicago. Trips talked his finance professor into letting him take his exam early, claiming a family obligation, and RJ turned in his final project for one of his high-level computer science courses early, and got such a good grade that his professor is letting him take the final exam at his leisure.
I’ve never been more relieved to live in a house of overachievers.
Monday after class, Professor Gleim asks me, Trips, and some other girl to stay after class. Once the room clears, she tells us we can use her as a reference should any of us apply to law school. In a school of over fifty thousand students, that’s a rave review.
Unfortunately, Trips couldn’t help but badmouth the whole profession after we left the room, which soured my excitement. Despite his whining, the fact that someone I respect thinks I could be a lawyer? That’s pretty cool.
It’s not the FBI, but I have a feeling the guys might need help on the legal front someday. I hope they don’t, but I’m nothing if not a planner.
The more I’ve thought about it, the more I’ve realized the FBI seemed like a good fit for the same reasons I’ve joined the guys: it required me to think like a criminal, had an element of adventure, and called to a base urge of mine to be powerful. It was also the antithesis of the anxious creature Bryce was grooming me to be.
Now I can’t work for law enforcement, not without going against my own guys.
The rush I felt running in to help Jansen was unlike anything I’ve experienced before.
The terror afterwards? Yeah, that was bad.
But still. I can’t wait to do it again .
I’m slated for van time for this trip, which is fine by me, at least for now. When I think about guns, I still get shaky. Guns are not my jam. More time to recover sounds like perfection.
Tuesday night, we pack everything, splitting between the van and yet another car the guys bought with cash. This time they found a tiny green Dodge Neon that’s on its very last leg. Driving across Wisconsin, the poor thing shudders anytime we go faster than fifty miles per hour.
Trips rode with RJ in the van, leaving Walker, Jansen, and me to maneuver the sad little junker to Chicago. Lucky for us, we put all that extra time to good use giggling and flirting.
We stumble into our suite—some high-rise off the Miracle Mile—and I’m greeted by a two-story lofted space that makes me forget the joke I was going to make the instant I step into the living room. “Wow.”
The Chicago skyline glints through the two-story windows, the pure dark of Lake Michigan taking up the left-hand side of the view. The snow that started as we pulled into the underground parking garage sparkles out the window, the effect like stepping into an enchanted snow globe.
Trips looks up from where he’s sitting in an armchair, a hint of a smile at the corner of his lips as he watches me taking in the room.
The carpeting is plush, the furniture leather and soft wool, the kitchen soapstone with white cabinets. I’m salivating, thinking about my bed. It’s going to be like sleeping on a cloud. Jansen slips his arms around my waist, nipping my ear. “I think your secret materialism might be showing.”
I grin, leaning into him. “It was never a secret. It was just masked by a severe lack of cash. ”
Walker squeezes my hand. “Duly noted, princess.”
I mock-glare at him, but he presses a kiss to my cheek before striding to Trips in the living room, his portfolio in one hand and his backpack slung over one shoulder. A new tension courses across his back as he sets the portfolio down on the coffee table.
Jansen pulls me tighter. “I knew you’d love your new boots and coat, beautiful. You haven’t touched the ones I took from your parents’ house.”
“Did you steal from both my parents and some poor shop that night, Jansen?”
“I left money at the store. I knew you’d prefer it if I paid. It’s not my fault they closed at eight.”
Pecking Jansen on the cheek with a shake of my head, I follow Walker, curling up next to him on the couch. I can worry about Jansen’s questionable mission another time. Walker’s forgery is more pressing.
Trips reaches over and zips open the portfolio. Whistling, he looks over the piece. “This is great, Walker. I’m no expert, but if I didn’t know you’d done this? I’d think it was the original.”
Walker nods. “I just hope it can fool the experts, too. At least for a few months.”
I’m itching to touch the thing, to see Walker’s work, but Trips is still inspecting the heavy yellow paper. “What about this smudge? Is that a problem?”
Walker leans forward, elbows on his knees as he looks at what Trips pointed out. “Nope. That smudge was on the original. They usually light the Rubens so the smudge is invisible, but it’s definitely there. I found it on our research trip. ”
I nudge him, and he takes the art from Trips and hands it to me. And it is stunning. Three large cats, pacing the page in chalk, made by this exceptional man beside me.
“Wow, Walker. Just. Wow.”
He chuckles, pulling it gently from my fingers and putting it back in the portfolio. He pulls a big, weird-looking eraser from his bag, carefully rubbing the edges of the paper where we touched it on both sides. “Does that really work?” Trips asks.
“As long as the prints are fresh, it’s like rubbing ink before it dries. Any prints left should be blurry.” He leans back over the couch, looking for Jansen and not finding him. “Jansen? You brought gloves, right?”
Jansen hollers from upstairs. Because there is an upstairs. In our hotel room. “Yup. No touchy. Got it.”
Trips pulls out his phone. “Let’s order food and crash. We’ll sleep in, go over the plan, and leave at 11 p.m. That’ll put us at the right time to use a dance club as a rendezvous if shit gets messy.”
He hands his phone to Walker to choose a restaurant—the rest of us will eat whatever he picks—and runs his hands through his hair, glaring out the window.
Walker squeezes my thigh, whispering in my ear. “Get him to open up to you, princess. He’s carrying too much on his shoulders. He might let you heft a bit of the load.” Message sent, he ambles upstairs to get the other guys’ orders, leaving Trips and me in the living room.
“Do you think things might get bad?” I ask him.
His hands idly trace the arms of the chair. Meeting my gaze, he says nothing .
“Please, be honest, Trips.”
Trips grimaces, standing up and pacing to the windows. I follow. Crossing his arms, he stares at the city lights. “We haven’t heard from Jasmine since you met with her. No details about the drop time or place, nothing.”
“And that’s unusual?”
Trips’ hand drags through his hair again. “Some fences stop contact so they’re protected should something happen to the team. The fence can’t get caught in the net if there are no communications that point to them.”
“So she thinks we’ll get caught?”
“Maybe? Or maybe she’s been told not to talk to us. Or she knows there’s something different going on. Or maybe she’s busy fitting in a trip to Cabo before Christmas. I have no idea. It just makes me nervous.”
“Do you still think we can we do this?”
He sighs, glancing down at me. “Our plan is solid. I’ve built in a few contingencies. But there’s no way to plan for everything.”
I take a risk, reaching for his hand. He lets me, watching my fingers slide between his own. “No one can plan for everything. If the plan is good, we’ll have to trust it. Anything else? We’ll figure it out.”
He yanks his hand from mine, marching to the kitchen, his fingers digging into his auburn waves. “Like running toward the guns while not letting anyone in on your little plan?”
I follow him, the urge to kick the back of his knee strong. “I didn’t have a full plan until I was already moving. ”
He looks over his shoulder, not an ounce of teasing on his face. “Your version of figuring shit out is dangerous and foolhardy.”
My stomach drops. Those hopeful feelings from a moment ago that Trips was letting me in, that he was viewing me as a partner instead of a wrench tossed into his well-oiled machine, with all my bits and bobs shaped perfectly to fuck him over—yeah, those good feelings dissipate. I stare at him, waiting for him to backtrack, to apologize, but I get nothing. Furious, I turn on my heel, leaving him in the kitchen. Alone.
“Thanks for the vote of confidence, jackass,” I call as I head up the stairs.
Only, he’s not entirely wrong, and it’s killing me. What I did was stupid and risky. But what other options did I have?
How many times have I put myself back in that moment and tried to find a better way out of it? There were other ways, but none of them were better.
Trips racing in there and turning the whole thing into an all-out brawl? Not better.
RJ hacking the system of locks on the windows and doors, allowing Jansen to sneak back out? Would there have been enough time before the guards found him sitting in that bathroom? That’s not any better, either.
Walker driving the van up to the front gate, music blaring to provide a distraction? The other team was there with their bikes idling, likely armed. Would Jansen have made it? I only slipped past them because I’m a girl. They weren’t expecting anything from me. I threw them off balance .
The sound of laughter meets me in the master bedroom, all three guys turning to me as I come through the door like I’m a magnet. As weird as it is, I kind of love it.
Walker hands me Trips’ phone, and I pick out some Thai dish I’ve never tried before.
As soon as I hand back the phone, RJ lifts me up, pressing me against his chest. Without explanation, he kisses me long and hard, our tongues stroking each other, my whole body growing soft with want. As soon as my bones turn into noodles, he sets me on my feet, an unusually devilish glint in his eye.
“Hey,” I whine. Something is up. And I’m really hoping I’m going to like it.
The guys laugh at my plight. “We took bets, sugar, on how long before you let Trips chase you off,” RJ says.
Jansen pulls my back against his front, and I melt into him, glad I don’t have to use my noodle legs any longer. His nose brushes around the shell of my ear as he continues where RJ left off. “If you’d made it another five minutes without yelling at each other, we’d all be doing shots and figuring out what kind of trouble we’re getting into tonight. You’d have won.” He slips his hands under my shirt, rough fingers sneaking under my bra and tweaking my nipples as he licks and nibbles my neck, my low groan entirely out of my control.
Walker steps in front of me, and I cling to him, needing more than one body to prop myself up. He kisses me. Hard. Unrelenting, his hand slipping down the front of my pants and brushing against my clit.
As soon as I’m close—and after the amount of fucking orgasm denial the man has done to me, trust me, he knows—both he and Jansen step back, and it’s all I can handle to stay upright.
“What? Why?”
Walker presses a gentle kiss to my brow. “You let Trips scare you off. So this is the punishment.”
I look at these three men, all of them as obviously aroused as I am. Trips might need help dealing with the stress, but these guys need something too. Me. “Well then, it looks like we all lost, didn’t we?”
The looks they exchange tell me they didn’t think beyond the tease. They somehow forgot that we’re all logs in the same fucking fire. I pout. “In that case, I think I’m going to go take a shower.”
Jansen nabs my hand. “Nope. You are not sneaking away to rub one out. You need incentive to push Trips harder.”
“Well, I guess you’ll all be harder then, too,” I say, pointing at Jansen’s barely contained erection.
RJ laughs. “You might be onto something, sugar.”
I turn to Walker, pouting. “Please? Why does Trips being an ass have to ruin our night?”
He shakes his head, adjusting his own erection before turning away from me, the grin on his face telling me exactly who started this bet. “I’m going to go get the asshole’s order.”
“Walker!” I shout at his retreating back.
Jansen’s fingers skate up the inside of my arm, and I turn to him, pleading. “Jansen. Please.”
“We need our beauty sleep so we’re ready for tomorrow,” he says, his fingers tracing circles inside my wrist.
“Don’t you sleep better after a good fuck?” I ask .
RJ bursts out laughing again, his exhaustion less noticeable when he’s grinning. “She’s got you there, Jay.”
Jansen presses a chaste kiss to my lips. “I might not sleep like the dead tonight, but I’ll have both celebratory sex and delayed gratification sex to look forward to. There’s probably even going to be some rage sex mixed in there. And oh boy, am I looking forward to that one.”
I push him away, feeling a flush rush up from my toes to my face. At least I know for sure he doesn’t begrudge that decision of mine. I stomp to the safety of the doorway. “You guys are the absolute worst.”
And I’m so glad that they’re mine.