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Fuck it all, neither had he.
In her dream, he parted her legs wider with his knee, and then he was there, plunging deep. She gasped, not in pain but in relief and pleasure and a sense of connection she’d never known before. She was part of him; he was part of her.
A mirror she hadn’t noticed before—she was pretty sure it hadn’t been there before—was suddenly over the bed. It was as big as the bed, reflecting the dream back at her. The face … which face did she wear? The old one or the new one? Did it matter?
She could close her eyes to escape the unsettling image, but instead she focused on X, on the broad shoulders and muscled back and hard, round ass. He had the best ass she’d ever seen. Their bodies were entwined on the bed, his tanned skin making hers look so pale, his hard body making hers look so soft, what she could see of herself. He was bigger, wider; he almost engulfed her. But as different as they were, they fit together.
She studied his strong legs; the way he moved … easier now, almost gently. Thrusting in and out in a slow rhythm that gradually, oh so gradually, increased in speed and power.
Lizette closed her eyes as she gave over and let herself come and come and come. She screamed, her back bowing as she clutched X to her, felt him come so deep inside her…
He whispered something, but she couldn’t tell what he said. She frowned at him, opened her mouth to say, “What?” Whatever he’d said was important, he wasn’t someone who chatted just to hear his own voice, but before she could form that one word, before he could answer—
She opened her eyes. Her body lurched, every muscle tensed … and then she relaxed, unwinding one muscle at a time until she was melting into the mattress. Every muscle in her body felt weak and heavy.
She needed to go to that Walgreens more often. If X regularly shopped there, maybe she’d run into him again. Maybe this time she wouldn’t freak and run like a scared rabbit. She could give him her number, ask him out for coffee, and then…
Yeah, right. Lizette Henry, sex-starved stalker. As if real life might possibly come anywhere close to a dream. As if a man like that one didn’t have a wife, or a girlfriend. Or both.
It was raining. She closed her eyes and listened to the raindrops on the window. The rain on the roof and the windows created a soothing sound that might lull her back to sleep, though the dark morning hours were winding down, edging closer to dawn. She wondered if she’d dream about X again or if that part of the night was done. She wondered if she’d forget the details of the dream, come morning.
Right now the dream seemed so real, she was almost positive she could still smell him.
Chapter Fourteen
Felice McGowan never wasted her time worrying about status or perks, or any of the other ego traps that kept the majority of people in D.C. so preoccupied. In a perfect world, she would have a personal driver who always delivered her right to the door of where she was going, and no one would ever question her authority. Those were the two items on her private wish list, but the world wasn’t perfect, so she forgot about it and dealt with reality.
Reality, in this case, was that she had to go out in the rain like everyone else, that most good plans usually went to hell somewhere along the line, and because of the nature of the game she had to go to Al Forge instead of telling him to come to her. His willingness to do so wasn’t in doubt, but she worked at NSA now and she didn’t want him there, didn’t want the super-snoopers to see them together. Their relationship was completely off the books, and had to stay that way, for both their sakes.
In one way she had it easier than Al. She wasn’t involved in the day-to-day, off-the-books surveillance of Subject C. Al not only oversaw that, he was also officially working under the large umbrella of Homeland Security. What he truly did was so wrapped in layers of need-to-know and for-your-eyes-only that probably even the President didn’t have the complete dossier on him. He’d started out at Treasury, with the Secret Service, then switched to DOJ, and from there God only knew everything he’d done.
The NSA had the goods on everyone who was on the grid—meaning everyone except maybe the homeless and a few hermits—but she hadn’t been able to access everything in Al’s file. There were gaps that probably corresponded to some interesting international events, but she hadn’t tried to match them up. When push came to shove, the country needed people like Al. Back in the day, she’d had a couple of gaps in her own dossier.
What Al used to do, Xavier now did. But Al had always kept his personal compass set on true north—meaning the best interests of the country—while Xavier was a wild card. When he’d started out she’d thought he was as true blue as Al, and God knows his skill level was off the charts, but along the way he’d gone a little rogue. Her confidence in him had been eroding for the past four years. But Al still trusted him, still believed in him, and that carried more weight than Al probably realized.
She didn’t rationalize what they’d done. She couldn’t. Every time she thought about it, she still got a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. Her head recognized the necessity, but her heart bitterly regretted every action they’d taken, and mourned the outcome. All of them had lost pieces of their souls that day, pieces they’d never get back no matter how much they devoted themselves to their work.
And now there was this thing with Subject C. No one had wanted to eliminate her, but everyone had recognized that she was the linchpin, the central weakness, that could not only take all of them down but also irreparably damage the country. Despite what Al perhaps thought, Felice wasn’t eager to give the order; still, she understood that such an action might be necessary, while Al couldn’t seem to admit that.
The thing was, for a while they’d been so close, the whole team, and people who went through such an intense event together developed a sense of family, of connectedness. Al’s loyalty to his team was legendary. But Subject C hadn’t been a part of the team; she’d been a tool the team had used.
They’d planned to eliminate the threat she posed to them, right from the beginning. As long as she wasn’t a threat, Felice was content to let her live.
As long as she wasn’t a threat.
There were disturbing details surfacing now, each of them small and easily explained away. However, taken as a whole, those details formed a completely different picture, one that Felice didn’t think they could afford to ignore. It was a picture that said Subject C was becoming a threat.
The building that housed Subject C’s surveillance was an ordinary two-story redbrick; the lettering on the door said Capitol Temporary Services. If anyone happened to wander in looking for a temp to fill in for a sick or vacationing office worker, there was a reception area, a receptionist, a “manager,” and, if necessary, a temp could actually be found. But given that the erstwhile business didn’t have a listed phone number, did no advertising, and walk-in business was nonexistent, that had never happened. Every now and then a not-too-bright guy would get the idea that “temporary services” was eup
hemistic for “call girl” and come in to negotiate a rate, but that was about it. Twice people had come in asking for directions.
Inside, the security was top notch. She nodded to the receptionist, who she knew was armed. Her thumbprint opened the first set of reinforced doors, and from there she progressed through additional layers until she reached the upper level. No building was completely unbreachable, of course. There was always a way to either get inside or destroy it. But this building wasn’t in the center of power or action, and it was so bland as to be almost invisible.
At its most basic level, the building functioned as intelligence and support. Al Forge ran his black ops, and one very small portion, completely insulated from the rest, was dedicated to the surveillance of Subject C.
Al wasn’t immediately available, so Felice left word she was there, and she went to the tank to wait. There was very little opportunity for silence in her world, and the tank was completely silent except for her own breathing, her own footsteps, her own little noises and no one else’s. No one was watching her, no one was gauging her reactions, no one was waiting for a decision—well, at least not at this very moment. She selected a pod of French roast and made a cup of coffee, then sat down to enjoy her solitude. Al wouldn’t keep her waiting long, so she had to make the best of it while she could.
She had some decisions to make, decisions that she didn’t take lightly. Al’s warning that Xavier knew where she lived and where her daughter lived wasn’t something she could ignore. Al had meant it as a warning, and she had taken it as such.
