Chapter 11 Lincoln #3
“Shame on me for not nudging you toward performative date-night standards, wasting hours of your evening primping and preparing to look good, purely for the male gaze, so at the end, I can pretend to be a gentleman, when all along, I’m only thinking about which panties you chose for me to discover later?
” I make no fucking discoveries behind the frame, so I set it back and carefully straighten it. “Shame on me, Nova? Really?”
“I don’t have date-night panties,” she giggles. “I just have panties. Men get what they get, and if they have the audacity to complain, they get my fist down their throat.”
I step back from the wall and turn in search of my next target.
“Has anyone ever made it to the fist down the throat stage?” I start toward the bedside table that matches the wardrobe and drawers.
Carefully pulling the knob, I slow already-slow movements when wood scrapes noisily.
“Has any man ever had the nuts to complain about your underwear?”
“No.” Her voice is stronger now, at least. Her sniffles, mostly dried up. “I’m what some call particular in my choice of male companions. Another commonly used derogatory term is frigid. Or this bitch thinks she’s too good for me.”
I wish we were on a video call, purely so I could see her face while she hoovers her lunch and talks about rejecting assholes. Which is a ridiculous thought, considering where the fuck I am and what I’m doing.
“My brother took his job as my keeper seriously,” she adds.
“Which made high school especially perilous for anyone who looked my way. And then my early adult years were, in some ways, better, but worse. Because by this point, my hormone dump, where I was most likely to do stupid shit, was passing. I was able to approach dating with a more critical eye. Casual sex is fine. I enjoy it, really. But if something crazy were to happen—the life-altering, we’re never going to escape each other, stuck together for the next eighteen years kind of crazy—then I needed to know I could handle that time with that person. ”
“You mean if you got knocked up?” I slide notebooks and random side-drawer junky things across to see what’s beneath. “You weren’t planning on having a kid, but on the off-chance protection failed and those super sperm motherfuckers struck gold?”
“Right. Just in case. So, someone like Aaron Dixon, for example. Is he nice? Sure. Is he ugly? Not terribly. Would he be good in bed?” She pauses on that one, considering. “I doubt it. But would I want to carry his child and be stuck to that family for the rest of my life?”
My lips turn up in a nasty sneer at the very thought. “Fuck no.”
“Exactly. So even if we were to double or triple up on protection, which is something I do anyway, the chance of something permanent happening is still there. Small, sure. But the chance exists.”
“Wait.” I set everything back in its place and inch the drawer closed, then I stand tall and rest my hand on my hip. “You were throwing yourself at me just a few minutes ago, Ms. Nichols. Are you saying I’m worth the risk of a lifetime sentence?”
“I’m saying I’m going through some shit right now, you’re buying the house next to mine anyway, and you probably-sorta-not really come with my brother’s blessing.”
“Probably-sorta-not really,” I scoff. Fuck me, she couldn’t be more wrong. “Charming.”
“You’re not ugly. You’re tall and broad.
” She ticks each detail off as if she carries a list. “You speak of your sister with love, which means you’re kind and protective.
You possess life skills, thanks to good old Uncle Sam.
You can fix my electrical issues on command. And your butt looks nice in jeans.”
“My butt?” I forget my mission and twist to glance back at my ass. “You think so?”
“Mmm,” she happily sighs. “I’ll triple-protect, no matter what. But if something crazy happened and the universe decided to screw me over, I’d choose you to marry and eventually divorce long before I chose Aaron Dixon.”
“Oh, well. Shit.” I frown. “I feel… special.”
“You should. I haven’t taken the risk with anyone in a while, and the last time I did, we ran into that tiny penis situation, which was a horrifying letdown.”
“You’re shaming an entire demographic of men, you know that?
” I shake my head and lower into a crouch, grinning as I carefully drag the bottom drawer out.
“They can’t help what they were born with, Nova.
But you’re out here making breeding decisions based on genes.
If everyone thought like you, the small-penis folks would go extinct. ”
“Like I said,” she snickers. “You can have a small penis and a fantastic personality. Or a crappy personality and a way to make me lose my mind so I don’t notice.
You don’t get to be annoying and underwhelming.
Though I wonder, Mr. Castro.” Her smile is audible, so I see it in my mind and hear it through the line.
“I sometimes wonder if you insist on defending the sadly under-packed because you, too, are lacking downstairs.”
“Maybe you’re right.” Yet, my cock swells until my zipper becomes a prison. I’m working and flirting with my target at the same time. I’m going to hell. “Maybe I’m insecure and terrified you’ll reject me once we’re naked.”
“Which is probably why you insist on dinner only,” she ponders. “Holding hands. You want to woo me with your personality so that when you pull your dick out, I won’t scream and run away.”
I stare down into the dark depths of Ryan’s drawer and sneer.
Not because of her playfulness, and not because I’m concerned about the size of my cock.
No. It’s because the drawer is filled to the fucking brim with USB sticks.
Dozens and dozens of them, all labeled with a four-digit number meant to piss me off.
That motherfucker knew someone would come looking someday, and to make the search a million times more difficult, he thought he’d throw in a hundred red herrings.
Well played, Nichols. Well played.
“Linc?”
“Yeah.” I push up straight, but only so I can stare down at my newest problem and consider a way to fix it. “Remind me again how we got here? From talking about grief, to a date, to how small my cock is? I’m kinda dizzy from how fast you tossed us over here.”
She snorts, oblivious to my whereabouts. My fucking betrayal. “It’s a gift, I think. But since your feelings got hurt, I’m willing to change the topic. What are you up to today?”
“Uh…” I glance across the room and stop on the door. “Just hanging around the house.”
“What do you think you’ll do now you’re retired from the military?” She sips her drink, so the gentle slurp rolls into my ear. “Home will get boring pretty quickly. You could become a civilian mechanic. I figured that was always going to be Ry’s plan once he was done.”
“I have experience in private investigative work.” Finally, not a lie. “I’ll probably lean that way once things settle down here.”
“Private investigation? That’s—”
“I have to let you go, though.” Frustrated, I run a hand through my hair. “Enjoy your lunch. I’ll swing by the bank before the close of business.”
“Oh, well…” Stunned, her easy tone makes way for something a little more formal. “Sure. Of course. I didn’t mean to take up so much of your time.”
“I don’t mind, I promise. But I’m in the middle of something, and if I don’t get back to it, I’ll run out of time. I’ll see you soon, though, okay? And I’ll even let you take an hour after work to come home and do the female beautifying rituals you insist on.”
“Generous.” The formality in her tone eases a little. “I plan to sit in the sun for the next half an hour while the mosquitoes sleep, and enjoy the fresh air and the rest of my sandwich. Don’t forget your ID and social security documents.”
“I won’t. Bye, Nova.”
She sighs. Happily. Sadly. I’m not sure. But her breathy exhale hits me almost like she’s right here beside me.
“Bye, Lincoln.”
Dragging my bottom lip between my teeth and dropping my hand, I turn to my phone to make sure the call is dead. Then, scrolling through my contacts, I find Aster and call him instead.
“Yeah?” he answers almost immediately. “Update?”
“I’m in her house,” I grit out. “I found his watch, some notebooks, and a drawer full of USB sticks.”
“A drawer full? Literally?”
“Yeah. I’ll grab a picture and send it over. I’m not sure what you want me to do. My gut says they’re a distraction and a waste of our time, all so we don’t find the actual key.”
“And the watch?”
I slide my free hand into my pocket and swipe my thumb along the glass face.
“Looks sentimental to me. If I take it and it’s not what we’re looking for, we risk her noticing.
If that happens, we might lose access to the home.
It’s your choice, Aster. Your risk. If I take it, and we’re wrong, the entire mission might be a bust.”
“Send it to me overnight.” He puffs on a cigar and coughs the smoke out again. “I’ll have it by the morning. I’ll look it over and send it back when I’m done, which means it’ll be gone for about forty-eight hours.”
“At which point, I need access to the house again to put it back where I found it.” Those two days might go unnoticed, or she might come in here every fucking day and stroke the damn thing.
“You’re calling it?”
“Yep. Mail. And toss the USB sticks in, too. We’ll run everything through our systems and send what we don’t need back. You find anything else in the house?”
“Not yet. I’ve only checked his room so far. I’ve got about two hours left before I need to bail out, so I’ll expand my search and see what I see. I’ll drop by the post office before the end of the day.”
“Good.” He inhales again and fills his lungs with cancer that, unfortunately for me, won’t kill him fast enough. “You’re running out of time, Castro. You’re on day four already, and you’ve brought me nothing.”
“Doing my best.” And because I don’t have to be quiet now that Nova isn’t on the phone, I snatch a plastic baggie from my back pocket and fill it with USB sticks, then I close the drawer and stalk around to the closet.
“It’s not my fault your target knew to hide his shit and keep it away from people like you.
What do the five keys unlock, anyway? You didn’t tell me yet. ”
He snorts and kills the call.
Just like that, the line is dead, and I’m all alone in a room that could kill me if I’m not careful. If Aster is stupid enough to think easily found thumb drives are where Nichols hid the secret he died for, then that’s on him.
But I’m not so foolish as to think Ryan Nichols left his key so exposed.
I don’t think he left his baby sister exposed, either.