Three heartbeats of silence hang over the table, where Sebastian’s stony expression gives nothing away and Jono waits for him to respond, and Dakota watches with wide, curious eyes, and I wonder if I’m going to have to apologize for my friend killing her dinner guest.
“Oh, yeah, definitely,” Sebastian finally says.
My eyebrows must be halfway up my forehead.
“We’re all like little pawns in their master scheme. Millions and millions of little tiny puppets with strings attached to us”—Jono starts miming the act of puppet master over his plate of food—“doing whatever they tell us and bullying us into paying for things we don’t need or want. We end up working like dogs until we’re old and gray so they can waste it on unnecessary things like . . .” He frowns, searching for an example.
“Military defense?” Sebastian offers.
“Yeah! Armies and ships and guns. See?” Jono bumps his arm with his fist. “You totally get it! You want to talk about wasting taxpayers’ dollars. I was down on Coronado Island a few months ago—have you seen that place?”
Sebastian nods once.
“Man, the billions of dollars they spent on all those ships and submarines, when our own country’s infrastructure is sorely lacking, for wars that don’t even exist.”
“What? What are you talking about, they don’t exist? Do you not read any news?” I finally blurt out.
Jono waves away my words with a dismissive hand. “It’s all propaganda. They tell us there’s a war so they can justify spending our tax dollars on defense toys and all these highly trained soldiers. I read an article in the paper the other day about those . . . what are they called?” His eyes scrunch up in thought. “Yeah, those super-elite guys that they always send in. What are they called?”
“Navy SEALs,” Sebastian says.
Jono snaps his fingers. “Yeah! Them. Do you know it costs a quarter of a million dollars to train each of those human weapons? And for what? So our government can say that we have these indestructible stealthy task forces, so don’t mess with us?”
“Actually, it cost them half a million to train me,” Sebastian says quietly, taking a long sip of beer, his eyes downcast. “And no one is indestructible.”
I’m no longer paying attention to the idiot sitting across from me. Now I’m keenly focused on the stranger who sits beside me, and how much more I need to learn about him. Sebastian already said he was in the navy, but did he just admit to being a SEAL? Granted, everything I’ve learned about our military forces comes from Hollywood, but the one thing they’ve all portrayed is that those guys are some of the toughest, smartest, bravest of any soldiers out there.
They actually are weapons.
Jono hasn’t clued in to the fact that he’s insulting the man sitting next to him. “Half a million dollars!” He whistles. “And, really, what has that bought America? Not nearly enough, I say. Those guys are probably over there, drinking beer and playing Ping-Pong on taxpayers’ hard-earned money. I’ll take my lifestyle over slaving to pay for that any day.”
Sebastian turns to size up the California bum with a hard look. I lean forward, itching to hear his response, to hear him drop a hammer down on this ideological asswipe.
“Ivy, where are your keys?” he says instead, his tone calm and low, unbothered.
It takes me a moment to process the question. “Hanging by the door.” I frown. “Why?”
He wipes his mouth with his napkin. “You shouldn’t leave computer equipment in a car overnight.” He nods to Dakota. “Thank you for dinner. It was great. Excuse me.” He pushes out of his seat and heads into the house.
Leaving me to glare at Jono, who seems either unconcerned or oblivious that he offended Sebastian. But at least he’s watching me with wariness now, as I thumb the tines of my fork.
“Isn’t it great to be able to live in a country where differing opinions are celebrated?” Dakota says with a slightly apologetic shrug.
“Right. It’s just peachy,” I mutter sarcastically. Eying the doorway into the house, wondering how long I should wait before going after Sebastian.
TWENTY-FOUR
SEBASTIAN
I admire the California bum. He gets to live in a fairy-tale world, where he is free to take what he has in front of him for granted, where he has the luxury of choice. And as long as there are “sheep and puppets” like me, working within the shadows to keep him in the dark about the kind of evil that exists in this world, he’ll get to stay snug in his ideological fairy tale until he’s old and gray.
Or until someone crushes his larynx, which is what I almost did five minutes ago. That would have been twice today that I lost control due to pure emotion. I had no choice but to dismiss myself. I figured it would be impolite as a dinner guest to kill another dinner guest.
And I have something much more important to do anyway.
I close Ivy’s bedroom door and press my knee against it, to hold it shut. She’s still in the greenhouse. Likely ready to lunge across the table and choke our dinner companion. She’s not as concerned about being impolite. But I have a feeling it won’t be long before she comes to check on me; I saw the look on her face as I stood to leave.
So I need to hurry.
Setting her tattoo kit down on the floor in front of me, I flip open the latches. Inside, it looks exactly the way I saw it yesterday, except now the machine pieces are all safely secured within the custom cutouts in the black foam.
There’s only one possibility . . .
Holding my breath, I curl a finger around one corner of the foam insert and begin pulling it back. It’s definitely removable.
I lift the entire foam panel—tools and all—up . . .
And feel the grin of satisfaction spread across my face and relief slide through my limbs.
There, secured to the roof of the case with two strips of silver duct tape, is an unmarked videotape.
I was right. Just like Beijing.
And now I have exactly what Bentley wants. Another successful assignment. As soon as I get this to him I’m free to leave.
The floor in the hallway suddenly creaks, giving me only a second’s warning before someone twists the knob. “Sebastian?” I feel the door push against my knee.
Peeling the duct tape off will make too much noise. I’ll have to get the video later. “Hold on a sec.” I place the foam back into the case, but it isn’t sliding in as easily as it came out. Fuck. I’ll have to fix that as soon as I get a chance, too. As quietly as possible, I lock the latches and slide the case aside then open the door.
Ivy pokes her head in, her eyes narrowed with suspicion as they dart from me to the bed, where her bags of clothes sit. “What are you doing in here?”
I point down to the computer, tucked neatly into the corner next to the door. “Figured I’d stack it to get it out of your way.”
“Oh.” She frowns. “You didn’t have to do that.”
She still hasn’t come to terms with letting me do things for her. “You’re welcome.”
She bites her lip, and then smiles sheepishly. “I mean . . . thanks.” Stepping into her bedroom, she pushes the door shut. “I’m sorry about that, back there.”
“It was fine. I usually eat alone, so this was a nice change,” I say dismissively, ever aware of the kit and the videotape—my entire purpose for being in her life—sitting next to my feet.
When she looks at me with that curious frown pulling at her eyebrow, I know that I’ve admitted to something strange. Now she’s probably wondering why I’m always eating alone. Why I don’t have friends or family to eat with.
“Well, I wish you had blasted him.” She eases herself onto the bed and begins untying the laces of her boots. “He would have deserved it. He was insulting you and every other person who’s ever risked, or lost, his life. I’m sure having some bum tell you that there is no war, when you carry the scars to prove it exists, must make you angry.”
There’s really nowhere to go in this room besides the b
ed, so I lean back against the door as casually as possible. “It’s not the first time I’ve heard it.”
She frowns, kicking off one boot, then the other. “So, you weren’t just ‘in the navy.’ You’re this super-elite soldier.”
I heave a sigh. It was a moment of weakness—and pride—that made me admit that. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“Why don’t you like talking about it?” She’s not even looking at me when she asks that; she’s focusing on her laces instead. It’s so unlike her to seem shy, but so is asking personal questions. Up until now, she’s had a keen sense for touchy subjects and veered away whenever she sensed she’d hit too close to home. So to see her sitting on this bed now, frowning with curiosity, averting her gaze with hesitation . . . I’m guessing it’s a side of Ivy that most people don’t get to see.
And I’m afraid it’s a side of Ivy that actually cares.
I wish it was smart to let her care. I wish I knew how to let her get closer to me. “I just don’t.”
She purses her lips, her gaze lifting to meet mine. I see her vulnerability shuttering, her temperature cooling. The need to get to know me shrinking away.
“I promised Dakota I’d do her next piece for her tonight.” She stands and stretches her slender arms around in the air, rolling her shoulders to loosen them. “And if I have to listen to that ass during it, I’m going to kill him. Accidentally, of course.”
She’s making a joke—I think—but all I hear is the part where she’s going to need her kit. “You’re doing it right now?” If she opens that case, she’s going to see that it’s not set right. Ivy’s the type of person to notice that kind of thing. And be suspicious of it. Then she’ll start adjusting the foam and if she adjusts the foam she could find the tape, and if she finds the tape, she’ll watch the tape, and if she watches the tape . . . Bentley’s words ring loud in my ear.
Whatever’s on that tape, Ivy can’t know about it. She needs to stay in the dark.
“Yeah. As soon as she’s done smoking the joint she just lit. I want to get it over with. I’m tired.”
“Then you should wait until tomorrow. Didn’t you just spend seven hours on some asshole yesterday?”
She’s walking toward me, her eyes on the case. “I’ll be fine. Speaking of some asshole, you haven’t done shit for your side all day, have you?” She glares at me with reproach as she leans down to reach for the handle.
My hand shoots under her arm, pulling her upright and to me. Thinking fast. “You’re right, I haven’t. Can you do it for me?”
“You’re a big boy. You can manage it.” She twists, trying to pull away from me.
I have no choice. I scoop her up by the armpits and carry her with ease to the adjoining bathroom.
“Don’t fucking manhandle me!” she snaps, shoving against my stomach the second I put her down. When I don’t even budge, she settles on shooting daggers at me with her eyes.
I say nothing as I span my arms across the width of the crammed space to slide both pocket doors closed. I reach over my head to yank my T-shirt off, then unbuckle my belt and jeans, and push them down an inch or two lower than I need to for the purposes of my tattoo.
Her eyes immediately drop to my chest and slip down, before she catches herself and averts her gaze.
But I don’t miss the hitch in her breath.
“Fine,” she snaps, spinning around to the sink to wash her hands. There’s really only standing room for one in here, giving me every excuse to be in her personal space. “I didn’t work on your body for seven hours so you can fuck up that piece of art. You can’t forget. Three times a day, especially with it being so fresh.”
I stare at her face in the mirror’s reflection as she lectures me, resting my hands on top of my head as I tower over her. I like it when she scolds me.
With the tap running, she turns around and begins gently—more gently than anyone might believe her capable of—rubbing the soap over the entire area, peeling back the elastic band of my briefs to get at the bottom without a word. This is her MO—cool and calm, indifferent. Unfazed.
But I feel the way her hands linger a little longer than necessary against my skin.
I see the way her gaze keeps flickering toward my briefs, where I’m already hard.
When she has coated the area with moisturizer, rubbing it in so carefully, not uttering a word, she softly says, “I’m finished.” She lifts her head to meet my gaze for a brief moment before shifting for the door, as if she’s going to leave.
I’m much too fast for her, and my hand on her stomach, pulling her back against me, stops her. “No, I don’t think you are.” Only a small part of me, deep inside where my motives collide with human need, feels guilty for what I’m about to do.
I wait five long seconds for her to say something. To tell me to fuck off, to tell me no. But she says nothing, and she doesn’t pull away, turning to stare at me through the mirror with a look that I can’t begin to read but makes me hesitate all the same.
Maybe it’s that the stakes are somehow higher now than they were yesterday.
Maybe it’s that she’s starting to care.
Maybe it’s that I’m starting to care.
But I have to get that videotape out of here before she even knows that it exists.
And . . . I’m dying to have her.
I slip my free hand around her soft, slender neck, feeling her blood pulse beneath my fingertips as I pull her tiny body flush against mine, barely noticing the discomfort in my side. My other hand tugs at her oversize shirt, curling and lifting the material until it’s above her waistline. She has such narrow hips, such slender thighs, all the more evident by these skintight elastic pants she wears. I can’t even imagine her legs stretching wide enough to accommodate my body, but I guess I’ll find out soon.
She watches me in the reflection with fire in her eyes as I slide my hand down the front of her pants, into her panties.
Into her.
I smile at how primed she is, and she matches it with a small, knowing smirk of her own, allowing me to explore her with my hand, much like I watched her do to herself only days ago. It’s been so long since a woman has let me touch her like this purely because she wanted me to, not because I’ve bought her body for a few hours. Bentley’s right—being with a whore isn’t the same as being with someone like Ivy. Someone I chose for her beauty, her intelligence, her wit. Someone I care to please.
When she closes her eyes and sighs, I dip down to grab the edge of her earlobe with my teeth, wondering how long she’ll take to come, and if I have it in me to wait patiently.
She doesn’t let me find out.
Her talented little hands push her pants down her hips to her knees, wriggling out of them until they’re in a pile on the floor beside us. Her shirt and bra come off next, all while my hand is still inside her, and now I have that perfect tight naked body in front of me.
“I hope you weren’t looking for romance when you planned this maneuver of yours,” she says with a pant, turning around and hoisting herself up onto the sink counter, her legs spread and back arched, staring at me with an intensity I’ve never seen before from her. She holds a condom up between two fingers—where she plucked that from, I didn’t notice—waiting.
And my dick starts to throb. Fuck, this girl is something else. “Romance isn’t really my thing,” I murmur. I have my jeans and briefs down in two seconds, the condom slipped on in another five, my mouth on hers in eight.
And I’m inside her with one hard thrust.
She’s so small and tight, and yet she takes me with flexibility I hadn’t expected, her body flush with mine as she clings to me, one hand hooked around my neck and squeezing tight, the other between her legs, working away on herself with small strokes that nearly make me lose it.
Fucking on a bathroom counter has never been my first pick, but I’m not about to complain now, keeping my hand at her back to block the tap from slamming into her tailbone. She’s let me hook her left leg beneat
h the knee and hike it up, both to get deeper and to keep her leg from rubbing against my tattoo. She matches each thrust, her breathing growing more ragged, her nails digging into flesh.
I loved watching her come the other night.
But actually bringing her to the brink?
It takes every ounce of control in me not to go with her when she does, her moans loud and unfiltered. Sounds I already want to hear again. The second I’m sure I feel the last muscle spasm inside her, I pull out and tear the condom off. Without having to say a word, she reaches out and pumps me until I let loose all over her smooth stomach and tits, a muffled “fuck” slipping out through my groans.
She sighs, lying languidly against the mirror and sink, her body limp and used and covered in sweat and cum. “Yeah.”
I never stick around after. With whores, there’s no point anyway. It just costs more. But with Ivy, I don’t want to leave. I’d do this all night with her.
But I have a job to do first.
I reach for a facecloth from a shelf above and hand it to her. “I’ll let you clean up,” I offer, laying one last kiss on her swollen lips before ducking out of the bathroom, sliding the door shut.
I listen for it.
As soon as I hear the door lock latch, I dive for the case, keeping one ear on her movements inside. I made one hell of a mess on her intentionally. Now that I know where the tape is, I make quick work of the duct tape, peeling it all the way off to remove the video. I slide the video under the bed and focus on tucking the foam back into the kit exactly how it was to avoid any questions.
I finally get it right, just as the toilet flushes.
When Ivy steps out a few minutes later, fully dressed, I’m doing up my belt.
“So . . . Dakota’s tat will probably take me about an hour and a half. You can watch if you want. But you don’t have to. You can do whatever you want. Stay or go . . .”
Back to being indifferent. She’s adorable when she’s trying to act like she doesn’t care, like we didn’t just finish fucking in the bathroom five minutes ago. The truth is, I want to stay. I could be hard again in no time, just looking at her. We could do it in the bed this time, and I wouldn’t get up and leave right away.