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“Seriously, Ella?” I clutched the railing of the shower glad for leverage of some kind to brace myself with as I stood up unsteady to finish washing. The moment clearly over, turning away from her. I wasn’t sure now whom was using who. Maybe I was cold, should I have done something for her? Frankly I wasn’t in the mood if she was going to glower at me. My intuition was like a Spidey sense of sorts and I could feel her channeling her irritation into something else.
“Please say you’ll come to The Club with me on Friday. We’ll have so much fun.” Begging, she touched me tentatively, a slight whine in her voice, and I shuddered from the contact.
“Of course.” I brushed her off, but a nagging sense of doubt clouded my mind, and I pushed it aside focused on the pleasures I’d be missing out on if I didn’t go. He certainly wasn’t going to fulfill my desires any time soon.
Four
LORAND
What the fuck was she doing here? Strange feelings of…jealously, anger and other emotions I had trouble connecting, flickered like a slow fire stoked by the image of her wearing…
Fuck…the scrap of fabric shouldn’t be considered clothing. Short, it was too damn short with her legs exposed the way they were. Why wasn’t she at home? Waiting for me? Where she should be. Because you’re the biggest dick she’s ever met, what where you expecting? Never in a million years did I presume to find my prim little Jude here at the club where I regularly slacked my desires.
In the past tense of course–because I couldn’t seem to get a damn erection without thinking of her and that made it hard to be with anyone else. Coming to the club all these years was a cover of sorts for the work I did, but still…I was a man and I had desires of a sort that I preferred with the right partners.
Of course this was also where I met Sorenson to get the majority of my kill contracts. He groomed me for this and then as a reward, he’d gotten me a membership when he learned of my proclivities. Surely I wasn’t the only man who liked binding and blindfolding partners deciding how and when I would let them touch me. For a time it had worked to assuage the guilt and shame of what I did until I started visiting Jude...crossing the boundary touching her. She affected me deeply, though what I did was invasive, and in many ways unforgivable. I wasn’t a complete psychopath without awareness; I just stopped caring along the path of my own damnation.
I hated my job even if I was good at it. Nobody should be good at killing, and while my contracts where more hand-picked out of desire than necessity these days, it was a burden I chose to carry alone. If he was here tonight and he saw Jude, it was going to be a mess of unholy proportions. I didn’t need her reminding him of the obligations I’d yet to fulfill or the prize I was taking too soon.
Standing on the far side of the room in the shadows out of sight sipping my drink, I watched her circle the club, her hand resting on the arm of her female friend, Ella Parks. I knew Ella. We had all attended Karim Academy, though at different times. I didn’t have a scholarship to attend and I guess Sorenson felt I owed him for that. Part of me wondered if I had been hand-picked to be an assassin just like those girls had been to be the sexual bed partners of those influential and depraved men. I should have known better showing my face in Karim, but I still knew the majority of students who had attended there and remained living in town as adults. I wasn’t completely unrecognizable and that was a problem hiding in plain sight.
The woman kept caressing Jude and whispering into her ear. It burned me from the inside out. So that was the way things turned for Jude after I turned her down? I was slightly shocked to say the least. The draw I felt to her strangely intensified, but not because she was flirting with another woman. That wasn’t the forbidden part of it for me, it was the fact I felt a little played, honestly. I thought she was into me, despite my own reservations, but maybe I was wrong?
“She’s beautiful isn’t she?” Tallulah Fremanis, or rather Tally as she is known in The Club plucked my drink from my hand placing it on a passing server’s tray giving me a fresh one. The service here was if anything always impeccable.
“I don’t know who you’re referring to, Tally.” My voice is low, rough because I’m not one much for words, ever. Jude wasn’t the only recipient of my selective mutism.
She laughed, eyes twinkling with mirth. “That one….” She pointed to Jude nodding. “She’s new, a friend of Miss Parks. I think she’s out of her element, but we’ll see.” Tally taps her lips thoughtfully assessing the room filled with newcomers and suits alike making sure everyone behaves inside The Club on this Friday night. These monthly newbie trials could be interesting, but Tally kept tabs on everyone and it was rare something bad happened with all the safety precautions The Club took to protect the established members as well as potential new ones.
“What do you mean?” Taking a drink, I swallowed slowly clearing my throat and letting the Maker’s Mark burn warmth down my chest loosening me up.
“She just doesn’t fit in, Lorand. I can practically smell the inexperience off of her.” Tally is shaking her head as if she’s sizing up Jude and wondering how the hell she got in here with Ella. Shit, I was wondering it myself. Continuing she says, “Try not to kill anyone while you’re in town my dear. I miss your face.” Tally taps my arm and then my cheek playfully before sashaying her fine ass back behind the bar near where Ella has guided Jude. I watched her leave shaking my own head. Tally could have made a formidable lover for the things I desired, but I knew she was happily content in a relationship. Actually, I was pretty sure she’d top me and be the real one in charge. She was seeing a security type guy if memory served me correctly, lucky man.
I had no doubt that Jude would be fine with Ella provided she didn’t venture upstairs to one of the private rooms unattended. I couldn’t babysit her tonight. I was still waiting for Sorenson to meet me and give me my next assignment. However, Jude was proving to be quite the distraction. I would have to find a way to take her to task later tonight once she got her ass back home, alone.
One on one, our dance made sense, a tango filled with angst, guilt and un-fulfilled desires, but here in public my hands were tied. Turning away past the dance floor and crowded bar, I headed down a corridor to a VIP area with booths shrouded in darkness and dim recessed lighting. One of Sorenson’s private suits, also a member like me, nodded and ushered me inside the booth.
“Ah, my Falcon has returned.” Sorenson tipped his drink at me using my professional name and pushed an envelope across the table in my direction.
Cracking a smile, I looked over my mentor with a more critical eye. His hair was dark and liberally peppered with grey. His dark eyes showed a weathered knowledge of life and exhaustion, likely from the burdens and secrets he carried. The suit he wore was expensive and finely pressed. There was never a time Sorenson didn’t wear a three piece suit but now it hung a little more loosely, his face more gaunt and angular. He was aging poorly sipping the alcohol of his drink recklessly. It would only be a matter of time before I was free of him as well.
“Of course when you brand all of your kills with that ridiculous symbol it’s hard to be missed, no? You swoop in and out too quick to be detected.” He flips his hand in the air annoyed, but that’s typical for Sorenson. Nothing pleases this man. “What is that thing again? The Eye of something?” I don’t bother to explain what it is and how it has nothing to do with my name as I redirected our conversation. It’s a symbol of protection and promised retribution, but I’m not here to discuss
that with him.
Instead, I brushed him off casually. “Hey, a man in my business needs to leave a calling card.” Or a don’t fuck with me message.
“Cocky bastard.” Sorenson laughs out loud and downs his drink. Snapping his fingers gets the guy outside to fetch him a new one leaving the two of us alone.
“So what’s this job entail?” I fingered the edges of the envelope cautiously.
“Seems like a certain senator’s son has got his dick in a pickle. Quite an embarrassment to the old family tree.” He tapped his fingers in a prayer like form together waiting.
“Supposing the apple doesn’t fall too far, I presume?” Sorenson had a knack for being annoyingly cryptic.
“You presume correctly, Falcon,” and he nods at me to take the envelope.
“Yes, but what’s he done?” I tapped the envelope back expecting an answer I knew wasn’t forthcoming, at least not tonight.
