Hostile Attractions Read online

  Chapter 22

  Once Elliot is gone, I sleep some more. Sometimes I feel like I could sleep for weeks.

  I definitely need it after being sick, then taking care of Elliot. Oh, and the orgasms that wrung me out. When I finally get out of bed, get showered, and head downstairs, it’s lunchtime.

  I haven’t slept in for a very long time. I also haven’t taken a day off. Fuchs expected me to be at his beck and call all day, every day, No weekends, no vacations.

  I’m going to have to learn how to relax all over again. But first, lunch.

  Chicken noodle soup does not appeal. When I look in the fridge, I find several take-out boxes and a note on top: All vegetarian.

  The handwriting is controlled, precise. And practically screams Elliot.

  He must have brought these in while I was asleep. I wish he’d woken me up, but he did promise me tonight.

  I grab a box and open it. There’s mushrooms, squash, kale, and quinoa in a savory-looking sauce. My mouth is already watering.

  When I reach up to open the microwave, I see it. And stop dead.

  His laptop. Sitting on the coffee table.

  Slowly I set the take-out box on the counter, my heart thumping. He had to have left it on purpose. It’s out in the open, waiting for me to find it.

  The hard drive is next to it.

  This is exactly the chance I’ve been waiting for. So why aren’t I breaking land-speed records to open up that computer?

  I don’t know. My legs feel weighted. My heart too.

  If I send off what’s on that drive to the press, that’s the beginning of the end. I won’t be able to stop what happens next.

  And what happens next is my going to prison.

  I look around the houseboat, at the cozy, snug home Elliot’s made here. I want to stay here, to take tiny, tentative steps back into the world, then come back to this. This sense of protection. Belonging.

  But it’s all an illusion. The protection is paid for and the belonging…

  I purse my lips, breathe through my nose to keep from crying. The belonging is only lust. Elliot likes to argue. I like to argue. We sparred together, built up some sexual tension, and then released it.

  I don’t know if I actually believe that, but I’ve got to make myself think it in order to psych myself up for what I have to do.

  The laptop opens with a soft sigh of the hinges. The home screen immediately pops up, doesn’t even ask for a password.

  I shake my head. First his phone, now this. Elliot really needs to do something about his computer security. This is just sad.

  But it makes it easier for me. In a few moments I’ve got the drive up and running. I scroll through everything, through the masses of documents and files and memos and programs I stole over the years. I’m trying to find something good to send to the journalist, but it’s more like a walk through the past.

  There’s the first project I worked on at Corvus, the one that caught Arne’s eye. It wasn’t that complicated—using machine vision and AI to automate monitoring twenty-four-hour camera footage—but I got it done in half the time allotted and better than the initial specs called for. So Arne called me up, asked if I was interested in something different. More challenging.

  It was the exact opportunity I’d come for, and I grabbed it with both hands. I kept climbing up the ladder, leaving wreckage in my wake. And on this drive I’ve cataloged every bit of that wreckage.

  I find some things that ought to make the reporter’s eyes drop out of his head and should be easy enough to verify if he’s got the right contacts. And then I install the secure messaging program on the laptop.

  When I enter my info and call up my conversation with the reporter, I see that he’s sent me another message: Still there?

  I could ignore it. I could take the drive and drop it into the canal, get a flight to somewhere else, somewhere far away from here. Fuchs won’t forgive and he won’t forget, but I could be Emily Dove again for a while. At least until he finds me again. Which could be years.

  But that vision doesn’t appeal. Not at all. I want the fight. I want to bring Fuchs down or die trying.

  I guess the old Emily really is back.

  I start to type a message. Still here. My internet access is limited. But I have some stuff for you.

  Immediately he starts to message me. Are you a Corvus employee? How did you get the information? Are you still working there?

  I hesitate. Should a reporter be asking all this? He’ll need to verify and corroborate everything I send him, but this feels like too much. Or maybe I’m paranoid.

  I no longer work there. I haven’t exactly turned in my resignation letter, but it’s true.

  What was your position in the company?

  Okay, that’s too far. Do you want to see some of what I have or not?

  There’s nothing on the screen for a long time. Long enough to make me think he’s gone. And then: Yes.

  So I send what I pulled aside for me. I don’t let myself think or hesitate, just like I walked into Corvus my first day on the job. This was the path I was determined to walk. So I’m going to follow it.

  The files upload quickly. Painlessly.

  I’ll be in touch. And then the journalist is gone.

  I methodically remove all traces of the messaging app from Elliot’s computer. And then I look up flights to Ecuador, do some searching on the dark web for fake IDs. I also check my email accounts. There’s still nothing from my old friends. But of course, Reagan will never be able to answer me, Chad probably doesn’t want to, and Deena… Well, we all grow out of that youthful activism stage. Except I got stuck in mine.

  I scrub all that from the browser history. Every last trace of me touching Elliot’s laptop. If I leave it, he’ll figure out what I’m up to.

  I’m worried he might stop me if he does. And I’m even more terrified that he won’t. If he knows that I’m escaping again and just lets me go…

  I shut the laptop with a firm push of my open hand. It’s done. There’s no going back now.

  Not that I ever really had the option.

  Chapter 23

  I practically break the door down when I get home.

  If the security detail notices how quickly I’m walking, how I don’t even acknowledge them as I hop onto the boat, I don’t give a shit. I’ve got condoms in my bag, and Emily is waiting inside for me.

  When I fall into the entryway, she’s in the kitchen, watching me wide-eyed. “Is everything okay?”

  “Upstairs.” I sound like a goddamn Neanderthal, but I can’t help it. “Now.”

  She holds very still for a moment and then she’s gone, up the stairs like someone’s chasing her.

  I grab the box of condoms and let my briefcase fall to the floor. I take off after her, leaving one shoe on the fourth step, the other on the eleventh step. My jacket comes off at the top of the stairs.

  She’s halfway through getting her own clothes off and is only in a sports bra and yoga pants. When I reach for the buttons of my waistcoat, she snaps out, “No. I’m taking that off you. And all the rest.”

  She stalks over, and I have to catch my breath at the way her skin plays over the muscles of her stomach, her ribs. She reaches for the bottom button and tugs hard. “These suits are a fucking tease, you know that?”

  My suits have been called retro, stuffy, and Atticus Finch-chic, but never a tease.

  “You do know it,” she says. “All this gray tweed”—she flicks a fingernail against the button and my cock twitches—“to cover up what you really are underneath.”

  “And what’s that?” My voice sounds like I dragged it out of the depths of the bay.

  “You pretend to be a respectable lawyer.” She rises up on her toes, her breasts brushing over my chest. She nips my earlobe and I shudder. “But underneath you’re the man who wants to fuck me.”

  This woman. This woman. “Get it off then.”

  She laughs, wicked, edged, a hint of Minerva creeping b
ack. I like it.

  And then she’s easing open the bottom button, so slow I know it’s deliberate. I have to hold my breath or else my lungs will burn up. Once it’s open, she slips her hand into the gap, finding my belly under my shirt. Every muscle from the tops of my thighs to the bottom of my ribs clenches.

  She does the rest of the buttons faster, but still slow enough to have me clenching my jaw by the time she gets my waistcoat off. Her hands slide over my shoulders, cupping appreciatively. She makes this hum in her throat that I have to hear again.

  I reach for my belt, but she stops me again. “I have this idea. Vision, really.”

  Vision sounds… intriguing. “Whatever you want.”

  “That’s right.” She unbuttons my shirt but leaves it hanging open. Her hands run down my chest—and again there’s that hum I love—until she reaches my belt. With a few quick flicks of her fingers, she’s got my belt unbuckled and my pants unfastened. She reaches into my boxers and pulls out my cock, giving it a welcoming stroke.

  She steps back, sighing appreciatively. “Perfect. Lawyer in the streets”—she caresses my bare chest—“caveman in the sheets.”

  I want to laugh, but then she starts pulling off her clothes and I’m gone. I’m already pushing her back toward the bed before she’s got her panties fully off.

  She lies back and I climb up her, taking in the sight of her. “God, I should have gotten you naked the very first time I saw you.”

  She laughs, then preens for me. “Right in the middle of a meeting about the Ultra acquisition?”

  “You made that comment about my contracts.” I squeeze her soft thigh, my fingers sinking into her flesh. “It made me so fucking mad.”

  She stretches luxuriously. “I loved how mad you were. I wanted to keep at you until you blew your top.”

  Of course she did. She knows exactly how to wind me up. “Every time I saw you after that, you were so dismissive. Like you’d look at me just to look away.” I’m breathing hard, my hand sliding up her thigh. Her skin is smoother than silk. “I’d go out of my mind when you did that.”

  Her smile is satisfied. “I did it on purpose. Because I saw it got under your skin.”

  “Were we foreplaying all this time?”

  “Maybe? I’ve kind of been out of the relationship loop. I don’t know what things are called anymore.”

  “Who cares what it’s called. We can invent our own terms.”

  She looks very pleased by that. “Does that mean you’re going to do to me things that have no name?”

  Jesus. I’m going to have to work hard to live up to that. Luckily, she inspires me to new levels of sexual inventions.

  “Sure.” I lower my head, kiss between her breasts. She took a shower recently, but the natural scent of her skin seeps through the soap. “But first, you had a vision?”

  She makes a sweet noise. “I’m naked.”

  I nod because we’ve got that part down. So deliciously naked I can’t help but run my hand over her torso, squeeze her breast, tease her nipple.

  “And you’re only half-undressed. Like you see me and you’re so wild for me you don’t have time to get your clothes off before you fall on me.”

  That sounds exactly like the state I was in when I came home. Ready to pull her to the floor and bury myself in her. My cock flexes, bumping against her thigh. Her sweet, succulent thigh.

  I reach between us, stroking her folds. She’s wet, swollen. More than ready.

  “Were you fantasizing about this all day?”

  She nods. “Among other things.” Then, in imitation of me, she reaches down and cups my dick. “Were you?”

  “You know I did.” I thrust into her hand, slow, deep. Her grip is tight enough to steal my breath.

  She runs her hand down her chest, pinches her own nipple. The sight of her pale fingers against the dark nub, the tip peeping out from between them, almost sends me to my knees.

  “Let me.” I put my hand on her other breast, tease her nipple to a stiff, proud point. She’s whimpering by the time I’m done.

  “Now.” She’s not begging, she’s demanding.

  I remember her fantasy—me so worked up I can’t even get my clothes off—so I boost her up onto the dresser. Her legs fall open, her pussy a wet, bright jewel between her legs.

  I find the condom I’ve got in my pants pocket—smart of Emily to insist I leave them on—and roll it down my straining cock.

  In the next heartbeat, I’m deep inside her. I take a minute to catch… not my breath. My thoughts. My emotions.

  Because it feels so damn good. Not just her pussy, which is tight and hot, but her thighs hugging my hips, her arms around my neck. All of her, not only the part clenching around my cock.

  And then I start to move and everything is obliterated except the heat between us. She meets my demanding thrusts with eager hip lifts, opening to me beyond what I ever could have hoped for.

  She slips a hand under my shirt, finding my back. That small point of contact is painfully intimate.

  The rest though… the rest is unrestrained. Uncontrolled. Her nails in my back, my teeth on her shoulder.

  “I’m so close,” she pants.

  “Touch yourself.”

  I lean back, making space so I can watch her. She fingers her clit, stroking the hood, circling the nub. I pull out almost all the way. When she strokes again, I pump into her. And again and again, stroking her from the inside as she strokes herself.

  “Elliot,” she gets out from between her teeth. Her pussy ripples around my cock as she comes.

  I thrust once more, and then my eyes close as I climax. The orgasm rolls through me like an earthquake, shaking my foundations.

  She folds forward, slumping against me. We’re still connected, my cock soft inside her, her legs hitched up on my hips. Carefully I lower her legs—she’s going to get a cramp—then pull myself out of her with a wet smack. Her juices are running down her thighs and mine, and it’s hot enough to get me semihard immediately.

  “You’re still sick,” I say as I gather her up in my arms. Her head tucks under my chin perfectly, like she was made to be carried by me. “You need to rest.”

  “You’re still sick too,” she retorts. But it’s slurry with sleepiness and the remains of her climax.

  “Excellent comeback. You work on that all day?”

  When I lay her down in the bed, she shifts until she’s snuggled deep in the sheets. And then she pulls me down beside her.

  A long, happy sigh leaves her once we’re entwined together under the covers. She runs a foot along my shin, rubbing my trousers against my skin. The touch makes my chest feel as if it’s filled with bubbles. Warm, happy bubbles. Huh. This has never happened to me before.

  I like it. I don’t want to let go of this sensation. Or her.

  “You should change,” she says. But she doesn’t let me go.

  “In a minute.”

  “In a minute I’ll be ready to fuck you again.”

  “Big words. Think you can live up to them?”

  She smiles against my collarbone. “Watch me.”

  Chapter 24

  Is there such a thing as too much sex? Elliot and I are doing our best to answer that tonight, and so far what we’ve come up with is: no, there isn’t.

  Although breaks are required. We’re taking one right now, lying in each other’s arms, simply being together. He’s surprisingly, wonderfully cuddly.

  If I think about it too much, how much I like him, it starts to ache. Because it has to end eventually.

  So I don’t. I only enjoy the moment for what it is.

  Elliot’s hard body under mine, a warm, living, full-body pillow. The tender ache between my legs. The way we both smell like sweat and sex.

  He inhales deeply, making my head lift along with his chest. “This doesn’t have to end.”

  I can tell he’s been thinking about it. Maybe for a while.

  So have I though. “My friends haven’t contacted me.
And when I release that information, there are going to be a lot of powerful people very angry at me. I might even be looking at a treason charge if they’re angry enough.”

  What I mean is I’m going to get taken down by these massive forces. Give up on me. Get clear, for your own sake.

  “There could be a way.” Stubbornness laces the words.

  “What, conjugal visits in prison?”

  “No. What about… what about a member of Congress? Aren’t they supposed to care about this kind of stuff? Provide oversight? One of them could help provide cover for you while you worked out an immunity deal with a lawyer.”

  He’s grabbing at straws. Tiny, microscopic straws, but he’s digging hard for them. It’s so adorable it hurts.

  “Like who?” I’m willing to indulge the fantasy while we’re cocooned in his bed like this. This moment is outside reality, so we can dream big.

  “I don’t know. There has to be someone.”

  “With the power to go up against the deep state? All on their own?”

  “Yes.” He’s so certain. I want to believe. “We’ll contact them, there will be hearings, and you’ll be a hero.”

  “I don’t want to be a hero.”

  He raises his eyebrows. “You spent five years undercover gathering information. Pretending to be someone else entirely. Cutting yourself off from your whole life.”

  “It wasn’t because I have a hero complex.” I prop myself up indignantly.

  “Then what was it? Why didn’t you stop the first month? The first year? Why keep going?”

  It’s something I’ve been asking myself the past few days. “I don’t know. I guess I was waiting for some moment where I would know it was enough. That there’d be a sign and I’d know it was time to go. But instead, all these awful things just kept piling up on my record. And I kept doing them. I told myself it was Minerva doing them, that since I was going to expose them, it was… acceptable to keep doing them.” I chew on my lip. “But that was a lie. It wasn’t Minerva’s fault. She was fake, an invention. It was all on me no matter who I was pretending to be.”