Great Exploitations (Crisis in Cali) (5 page)

“And what are you so convinced I’m lying about?” My shout came out a bit louder this time, but still no louder than a raised whisper.

Henry’s eyes cut to mine. “About plenty of things.”

In that moment, I would have sworn he knew exactly what I was lying about—the reason why I’d been reintroduced into his life and what the whole goal of that scheme was. But with a quick reminder that Henry couldn’t know about the Eves, I took a slow breath. The only way Henry could know what I’d been hired to do was if his wife had told him or if G had, and since neither had anything to benefit but everything to lose from telling him, he couldn’t know. He didn’t know.

He did, however, know I was lying to him. I supposed that wasn’t all that hard to deduce. “I’ve got my lies and you’ve got your guilt, so that makes us about even.” It was late and I needed to prep for the Wallace Errand, so I sprang out of my chair, snagged my purse from the desk, and shouldered past Henry toward the door. He could stay, but I was leaving.

I was one step past him when his hand caught mine. “Don’t go.”

His skin against mine still felt the same, more hot than warm to the touch, the surface of it more rough than soft. The way I felt when he held my hand was the same as well. If the whole world was to end tomorrow, this was just the way I’d want to spend my last day—with Henry Callahan’s hand pressed against mine.

“Let go,” I replied, my voice spent and the rest of me feeling as much so.

When his eyes lifted to mine, I knew I’d missed my window. When Henry’s eyes, so vulnerable and full of honesty, met mine while he held my hand tightly, I knew there was no way I could leave him of my own free will. I probably couldn’t have left him if it were up to plenty of other people’s wills too.

“I can’t,” he whispered like it was a crime.

Before he could say anything else and before I could think anything else, I found myself moving toward him. My body had barely pressed into his before my mouth connected with his. He didn’t gasp with surprise, which meant he’d been expecting it. Which meant he’d been hoping for this when he crossed the campus in search of me. Somehow, that knowledge made my mouth and hands move more frantically. I couldn’t seem to kiss him hard enough or dig my fingers deep enough into his body. I might have attempted to ease back, but his mouth moved just as voraciously against mine.

His hands molded and adhered to me with a strength I’d never felt from Henry. It was like time or anticipation had made his desire more powerful. His mouth didn’t slow as his fingers moved to the buttons of my blouse, unfastening them as quickly as he tugged it free of my skirt and down my arms. I was less patient when it came to removing his shirt. Gripping it with both hands, I tore it open and pulled it down his arms.

My fingers were working on his belt when he lifted me and carried me to my desk. He laid me down gently, but that was the first and last gentle part of our love-making. He shoved my skirt up around my waist, and my panties were on the floor before I’d realized he’d tugged them off. He was moving so quickly, like he knew how conflicted I was and didn’t want to chance one quiet moment that could cause another flash of hesitation and doubt.

But an entire handful of quiet moments could have passed without changing what was about to happen. I’d jumped, and there was no going back once I’d made the leap.

Henry didn’t bother unfastening the rest of his belt or removing his pants. After lowering his zipper, his body came over mine a moment before I felt him enter me. He uttered a curse. I emitted a cry. When I was sure he could go no farther, he moved deeper, making me cry out harder still.

His hand found both of mine, and he lifted them above my head, pinning me to the desk as his pace slowed. Where before it had seemed like he couldn’t move fast enough, now that he had me, it was almost like he wanted to spend forever like this. His other hand curved around my backside, bracing himself as he continued kissing me the way he was moving inside me—slow and deliberate.

One part of my mind was very aware that I was having sex with a Target without having a Contact in place to catch the indiscretion.

I couldn’t have cared less.

Another part of my mind realized I was making love—what was happening wasn’t a job in any sense of the word—to a married man. I felt a flash of guilt realizing I wasn’t all too different from the girl who had climbed into Henry’s bed back in college when he’d been engaged to me.

I didn’t care.

Another part of my mind knew I was standing on the precipice of ruining everything I’d built during the past five years, about to throw away a career and a quest for revenge for a man who’d broken me before and could do it again.

I didn’t give a fuck.

Like when Henry and I were together before, the world took a backseat, and all that mattered was us. I’d feared that would happen, but the truth was that I’d let Henry back into my life intimately weeks ago—we were just now enjoying the physical benefits of intimacy. I’d let the same man whose life I’d wanted to ruin back into my life, and now that he was there, I’d do anything to keep him.

Whatever fraction of doubt and reservation still lingered in the back of my mind drifted away, and I found myself lost in him and the way our bodies seemed to move as one.

“Eve?” His voice was rough, like words were a feat at this stage.

When I tried to reply, I found myself in a similar situation. “Henry?”

His fingers curled deeper into my body when I said his name. “I’m sorry,” was what he got out a moment later, panting as heavily as I was from our union.

As suddenly as it formed, a single tear rolled down the side of my face. “I’m sorry too.”

Gripping my hands hard, Henry flexed his hips against me one last time before we both found our release, curling into each other as our labored breaths became low cries. We stayed like that, wrapped around one another on my desk, for so long that my legs started to tremble from depletion.

Henry nuzzled me before pressing a kiss into my lips. “Thank you.” His voice was lower and groggy sounding.

“For what?” He was still inside me, and when I tightened around him, I felt him grow hard again.

“For giving me a second chance.”

As his mouth moved to my neck and his hips very gently rocked against mine again, the world and all of its harsh reality came crashing down around me. It was no longer just Henry and me in our own world void of history and guilt and revenge. All of those things settled back inside me until they felt as fresh and raw as they had the hour after I’d walked in on him with another woman.

My hands were already moving to his chest to push him away when I heard an all-too-familiar sound in my purse. It was my G phone—she was probably calling to check in on me going into Sheet night with Mr. Wallace . . .

“Shit. What time is it?” My back springing off the desk was sufficient enough to push Henry away from me. Reality seeped in another layer deeper.

With an expression that bordered on confused and hurt, Henry checked his watch. “A little after eight.” His voice had lost all notes of groggy and sated, replaced by higher ones filled with edge as he watched me lower my skirt and grab my shirt from the floor.

“Shit,” I snapped again as I pulled my shirt on, buttoning it in a rush. I was supposed to meet Damien Wallace at nine o’clock. I was a long ways from looking the part for Sheet night, and it would take me at least twenty minutes to drive to the hotel.

My panties were at Henry’s feet and I couldn’t risk getting that close to him again, so I let them lie. I didn’t need them for the rest of the night anyway. With every second that passed, more and more reality poured down on me, taking me further from Henry . . . or taking him further from me. I couldn’t be sure.

The only thing I was sure about right then was that I was in very real jeopardy of failing two Errands. I was about to lose the Wallace one by arriving late and fresh from being with another man, and I was about to lose the Callahan one because I’d let my misguided feelings for Henry supersede five years of feelings that centered around nothing but revenge. How had I let that happen? I was smarter than that. I didn’t play the part of the foolish woman. How had I let a few words and vulnerable looks from Henry work against my better judgment?

“What’s wrong?”

When he reached for my hand to stop me, I snapped it out of his way. “Everything.” I grabbed my purse and headed for the door, throwing him a warning look when he followed me.

“Everything as in what?” He threw his hands in my direction like he was at a loss, his expression looking the same. He wasn’t the only one confused.

“When someone answers ‘everything’ when someone asks them what’s wrong, it’s kind of like answering why with a because.” I threw the door open, barely slowing as I did. “It’s not good form to ask for the particulars.”

“Eve—”

“You just fucked me, Henry!” I shouted, spinning around. “You don’t get to have the particulars or anything else!”

His gaze flickered to the desk. “That wasn’t all I wanted of you. That wasn’t even close.”

My eyes narrowed on him. “That’s all you’re ever getting. You’ll never get any more of me again.”

His face broke for me to see. My heart broke for only me to feel.

“Don’t go,” he whispered, reaching for me. “Stay. We can talk this out, I know we can.”

“There are some things that no amount of talking can fix. We both know that.” I continued backing through the door, knowing that each second I wasted with him put me further behind with the Wallace Errand.

“I have something important to tell you.” He paused long enough to scrub his face. “I’ve got several somethings important to tell you.”

My head shook. “I don’t want to hear them.”

“I think you will.”

“I
know
I won’t,” I snapped, unable to look at him anymore. Even with reality heavy around me again, I could still feel his hands, the way his breathing sounded outside of my ear, the way it felt to have him inside me again. Reality might have numbed me, but it didn’t create oblivion.

“Stay,” he pleaded, sounding like he was losing hope.

Turning around, I knew that no matter what, I couldn’t see Henry Callahan ever again if I was going to keep a hold of whatever was left of my soul. “I can’t.”

TIME WAS MY enemy, at least the only enemy I focused on, as I sped toward the hotel I was expected to be at in less than five minutes. My adrenaline had kicked in, and I concentrated it on getting my head into the Wallace Errand.

The moment I’d stormed off of Callahan Industries, I’d been able to put all that had happened and everything that had been said in my office to the back of my mind. It wouldn’t stay there forever, or even for long, but I’d successfully quarantined it. Hopefully it would stay long enough so I could close this Errand, even though I accepted I’d just flunked the biggest one of my career.

But now wasn’t the time to think about regrets and failures and screwing Henry Callahan on my desk. Now was the time to forget all about that and focus on Damien Wallace and proving to myself that I had shoved aside whatever feelings of loyalty and affection I’d felt for my other Target. I
needed
to prove that to myself.

Having had my outfit waiting in my trunk in the event I got delayed by emails, on-the-edge developers, or . . . with Henry Callahan above me . . . I’d changed in the parking lot of Callahan Industries. I didn’t care who might have been watching or what they might have seen. After freshening my hair and makeup and certain parts of my body, I hit the Mustang’s gas and didn’t let up.

By the time I pulled up to valet, I was only a minute late. Arriving late wasn’t my preferred method of kicking off a Sheet night, but it was a hell of a lot better than not showing up at all. Besides, I’d seen enough fascination in Damien Wallace’s eyes to know he’d wait longer than a minute for me.

Mr. Wallace had told me he’d be waiting in the room and to check-in at the front desk when I arrived, so after I told the receptionist who I was, she handed me a key and gave me directions to the room. Now that I was there, the adrenaline was trickling from my system, leaving behind images of Henry and a heap of feelings that spanned the entire emotional spectrum. It was a thirty-floor elevator ride to the top of the hotel, and as quick of a journey as it was, I wasn’t sure I’d ever experienced time moving so slowly.

The harder I tried to forget about him, the more Henry seemed to take over my mind. As the elevator doors opened, I tried to sequester him into the back of my mind again, but I couldn’t contain him there any longer. After everything that had happened, both in our pasts and in our presents, I couldn’t keep him repressed a moment longer.

As I slid my keycard into the penthouse door, I was certain I’d never been less mentally prepared to wrap up an Errand. How could I complete the final seduction of one man when all I could think about was a different man? Opening the door, I stepped inside, trying one last time to shove Henry’s face from the forefront of my mind. It didn’t work.

Not when the very person I was trying to forget was the one I walked in to find stopping his pacing long enough to meet my surprised gaze.