Forced Assassin (12 page)

About half an hour had gone by before he spoke again. “My name’s Huntington.”

“Nice to meet you,” she said as a greeting.

“I can see why he likes you.”

“Who?”

“You know who,” he answered.

“Bishop? No, I imagine he likes the regular sex but he doesn’t like me.”

“From the clips last night I’d say he’s got a thing for you.” Huntington eased back into his seat, staring across at her.

“Okay, you want to talk?” Fallan turned the sound to mute and placed the remote on the arm of the chair.

“Not particularly.”

“I can see you’re itching to interrogate me. We’ve got coffee and time, might as well use the opportunity.” She picked up her cup and waited, shocked by the fact she wasn’t afraid.

“What was in the bag?” Tough guy, went straight for the kill.

“I don’t know. As I told your man, I accepted a holiday as I was strapped for cash. A treasure hunt game, several other women were in on it.”

He kept firing the questions at her. Sometimes the same questions but in a different way. Almost like he was trying to trick her into admitting something.

An hour went by and she made more coffee, enjoying his company even if the conversation was all to find out more about her past.

“Have I passed the test yet?” she asked after she’d replied to his latest question. Since when was having a happy childhood important?

“Fuck me. Bishop sure knows where to find them. You must be the single most innocent woman I’ve met. And you’ve got a great arse.” Huntington rose from the sofa and stood behind her chair.

So intent on how to answer his question, she hadn’t heard the lift door go. Bishop stood in the lift doorway, wearing a blue boiler suit, a fuck-off bushy beard and eyebrows, and a pair of spectacles similar to Huntington’s. What the hell? Did he think he wouldn’t be recognised like that? She’d know him anywhere. Fallan wanted to run into his arms and hug him. He looked pale and drawn as if years had been added on to his age.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

Bishop nodded but didn’t look at her. His gaze was firmly planted on Huntington.

Seeing the undercurrent of tension, she excused herself and went through to the bedroom to give the men their privacy.

* * * *

Fallan didn’t know how long the men had been sitting in the other room, but she’d changed into a dressing gown in the meantime. Bishop came into the bedroom a while later looking worse than when he’d entered the basement.

“Are you all right?” she asked again, wondering where he’d been with that facial hair.

He hesitated, taking off the spectacles and putting them on a chest of drawers. He fiddled with his eyes, popping out contacts and placing them beside the specs. Moving from her position on the bed, she stood in front of him. Bishop didn’t appear to be the confident man she’d grown accustomed to.

“I don’t want to talk about it.” He stalked to the shower.

Frowning, Fallan let him go. Something was up. He didn’t even have any of his usual distrustful questions to throw at her.

“I can’t do this,” she said to herself.

He clearly had something on his mind and needed time alone. How could she help him deal with whatever was plaguing him?

Why would she even
want
to help him?

The wires inside her head were starting to cross. He’d kidnapped her, forced her from one house to another, and now here she stood, caring about a man who only viewed her as a fucking job.

Even knowing all this, you still want to please him, don’t you, Fallan?

She would very much like to growl at her own mind.

Weighing up the points pissed her off. Why couldn’t she just accept her situation and think of Bishop as a very grumpy boyfriend who had a large cock and knew how to use it?

That sorted, she sat on the bed and thought of the best way to ease Bishop’s mind from his troubled thoughts.

She glanced into a mirror on the wall for a hair and body check. Thoughts of their sexual time together brought enough moisture to her folds she wouldn’t have to worry about faking it. With Bishop she never wanted to fake an orgasm. She wanted to enjoy her time with him. She’d get herself ready so she was waiting for him when he came back into the bedroom.

Twenty minutes later, he came out of the shower, sans beard and eyebrows, with a towel wrapped around his middle and another he was using to dry his hair. Fallan had decided on a kneeling position beside the bed. She bowed her head, face almost touching the floor. She’d heard some stuff about submission and figured with his high-end, double-secret shitty job he wouldn’t want a tiring woman in his life. Opening her mind, she imagined her husband had come home from work and she was there to do his bidding.

“What the fuck is this?” he asked.

Turning her nose up at a small tumbleweed of dust on the floor and going cross-eyed trying to keep with her performance of a submissive, she paced herself for a few seconds then responded to him.

“I’m a gift from your trying day,” she croaked out, wincing at how bad and corny her words sounded. She should have spent the time while he was in the shower rehearsing lines.

“I’ve not got time for games,” he growled.

“Permission to stand, Sir?” she asked, staying in character.

“Fallan, this is—”

“Permission to stand, Sir?”
I don’t give a fuck if you don’t want to play. I do, and you’ll fucking play. Don’t say that out loud, Fallan. Remember this is for him.

“Stand.”

Okay, so she was going to have to work to get him in the mood. Not a hardship, but, still, it would have been nicer if he’d wanted to play.

Maybe she could get him to say a few naughty words to her?

“You’re so wet. I’m going to get you nice and dry,” she said, still with her gaze fixed on the floor. Careful to not walk into anything, she took the towel from his hand and began to dry his body. “You’re such a brave man going out into the world like that.” Where were these lines coming from?

“I’m a brave man.”

What was that? Is he participating?

“Would my Master like a nice view while I finish drying his body?”

“He would like that very much.”

Yes! I got him.

Untying the sash of her dressing gown, she eased it open and let it fall to the floor for dramatic effect. Her body was on fire from talking the words out.

He hissed and she smiled.

She returned to drying his upper body, arms, chest, neck and hair before she dropped the towel. Glancing down at the one around his hips, she contained a giggle when she saw it tented at his groin. Bishop wasn’t immune to a little role-playing, then.

“Do I own you?” he asked.

“For now I’m your slave to do with as you wish.”

He touched her face, tilting her head back, and ran his thumb over her mouth. Leaning in, Fallan puckered her lips but no kiss came.

“I don’t want to kiss you. Not this time,” he said.

Disappointed, she masked her emotion quickly, not wanting him to be annoyed with her.

“In fact, all I want to do is fuck this lovely body.”

He tore the towel from his hips and walked her back to the edge of the bed. She fell with a laugh then moaned as he tugged a tight nipple into his mouth.

“Harder,” she gasped.

“I’m the Master. You’ll do as
I
say.” He bit down on her nipple a little harder, seeking her moist slit with his hand.

Fallan cried out from the pain in her nipple to the pleasure from his fingers. She was so close to orgasming.

“Don’t come yet,” he warned.

She cried out again, hating her own game. Why was it men always wanted the women to hold off from climaxing? Was it jealousy, seeing as they could only climax once throughout a session?

Whatever it was, she was pissed off because of it. Instead of voicing her protest, though, she lay prone beneath him, enjoying his hands and mouth even if she couldn’t enjoy the ultimate benefit of what he could do with them.

He lifted his head and glanced at her. She saw the battle warring within him.

“What’s the matter?” she asked.

“I want to fuck you.”

“I’ve not got a problem with that,” she told him, smiling.

“No, I want to fuck you hard.”

“I’m not going anywhere. Do what you want.” To help convince him she meant what she’d said, she opened her legs wide for him to see all of her exposed cunt flesh.

Bishop continued to stare at her. She sucked on her finger then placed it against her clit.

“I want it,” she said on a moan.

He grasped his cock and pressed the tip to her entrance. For however long it took before she was allowed to come, all Fallan could do was hold on.

He didn’t push inside but pulled her to the edge of the bed and held her hips at an upward angle. Kneeling on the floor, he gripped her hips tighter and thrust all the way inside her. Before she could catch her breath, he withdrew then slammed back in. Nothing soft or nice, but dirty and hard.

She screamed with a force that shocked her. He pounded into her. There was no pain, only the most exquisite torture of pleasure Fallan had ever experienced. She didn’t want it to end. She grabbed the sheets, holding them in her fists. His pelvis rubbed against her clit—a wonderful sensation.

“Can I come?” she begged, wanting…no,
needing
the release of orgasm.

“Yes,” he snapped, each thrust designed to send her further over the edge than the last.

He tilted back and up, hitting a spot inside her, forcing her lower half further up. Reaching out, she pulled him down for a kiss. No longer would she be denied the pleasure of his lips. He pummelled deep inside her over and over that spot, making her mindless. She wedged one hand between them and pressed a finger to her clit, taking her over the edge to sweet oblivion. Her pussy tightened and she panted through the bliss. He jerked harder than before. With one long, hard plunge he erupted inside her, a loud growl spilling from his lips.

Bishop stayed in that position for some time until he pulled out of her and collapsed on the bed, covering his eyes with one hand. Not bothering to cover herself, she crawled up beside him.

She didn’t say anything and lay waiting.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

“Anytime.”

He rolled over and faced her. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

She was touched with how concerned he was but he didn’t need to be. “I’m fine. More than fine.”

“I lost control.” He placed a hand on her stomach and made to move as if he was going to look down and examine her.

She stopped him. “I said I’m fine. I wouldn’t have come if I didn’t enjoy it.”

“I don’t know what I’d do if I hurt you.”

Was he aware of what his words meant to her? Did he feel something more for her than the fucking?

“You’ll never hurt me. I know that.” She brought him in against her body and kissed his temple. She rested his head on her breast and stroked his hair.

Staring at the ceiling, she waited again, her body covered in a fine sheen of sweat. She wanted to get up and shower.

He shifted his fingers, lightly caressing her belly. She let him.

“I killed a man today,” he said after a long stretch of silence.

“I know.” Fallan didn’t know how she did but she’d sensed a change in him. One that didn’t sit well with him.

“I’ve never killed anyone before.”

That confession surprised her.

“I don’t know if you’ll consider me any worse for it, but I usually only torture people for information. I guess a clean death is more suited than where you pray for death before it’s granted.”

Fallan stroked his hair some more. A tear fell from her eye. “Is that why Huntington was here? To make sure you’d finished the job?”

“I doubt it. No one ever knows what’s going on in Huntington’s mind until he wants to tell you. He didn’t try anything, did he?”

“Besides ask a billion questions? He was the perfect gentleman.”

Silence descended on them again for a few minutes. Fallan tried to process what he’d told her. He’d never taken another person’s life before today but he had tortured them.

“That stuff in the bag? You know, the one I was fooled into planting?”

He nodded.

“Was it really bad? I mean, was there information in it that would hurt someone? It wasn’t protecting anyone who’d done bad things?”

“I can’t tell you everything.”

“I know, but please tell me I wasn’t involved with anything to do with drugs or prostitution, or—oh God, this makes me sick to my stomach—child pornography?”

“No. Don’t worry, it has nothing to do with any of that.”

“But if I knew what it was it could get me killed?”

“Go to sleep, Fallan.”

She had her answer.

Chapter Ten

Dusk had been making an appearance as Huntington had left the cottage. Back in his office now, he withdrew the recording device from his inside jacket pocket and placed it on the desk. He wasn’t sure he could listen to it without having a stiff brandy first. Bishop had pissed him off, no doubt about it, but Huntington had laid the cards very firmly on the table—Bishop had to continue doing his job, with the addition of killing where necessary, or lose his life.

Simple.

Huntington took off his suit jacket and hung it over the straight-backed chair in the corner, the one he used for interviewing—he preferred that term to interrogating—those who needed a little persuasion to do what he expected of them. He grimaced at the thought of Bishop sitting in it. That man would know why Huntington had chosen the chair and the result wouldn’t be Bishop cowering and obeying every request—not without a few questions and making it clear he wasn’t happy, anyway. He had got too big for his bloody boots. Needed taking down a peg or two. But he was a damn good agent—their best—and losing him would be a big blow.

Pouring a brandy from a crystal decanter he’d been given for twenty years of secret government service, he took a sip and relished the burn as the liquid went down his throat. It hit his belly and warmed there, heat spreading to his limbs, relaxing them and his mind. He locked the door, then sat at his desk and toed off his shoes, confident the next phase would happen. Bishop would go for Waterman and whoever else got in the way, he was sure. This mission would be over soon. They had all the bags—he’d taken the final one from Bishop earlier. The government people involved were safe…and the information in those bags wouldn’t hurt to be used as a little leverage if those people chose to play up in the future. The only blot on the landscape now was Waterman and his crew, or what was left of it.