Stress Relief (2 page)

Andi swept both hands though her hair,
her thoughts a chaotic swirl.
Oh God, he’s going to fuck me. I can’t believe
this. I haven’t even had a date it two years because of this stupid job—I’m
practically a virgin all over again. Agent Alpha is going to rip me in two. I’ll
be lucky to get out of his apartment alive.

She tried to consider her options—but
there were no options. Refusing to do as Central had ordered or running away
from her post would both result in the same thing—certain death. When she had
accepted a job as an agent control enabler which was the Agency’s fancy name
for her position, she’d had no idea what she was getting herself into. Not
until it was too late to get out of it alive.

What she wanted to do in the worst way
was run, just get out of town and possibly out of the country and try to start
a new life somewhere else. But she didn’t have the training to avoid the people
the Agency would send after her. Come to think of it, they might even send the
very agents she was currently overseeing. The thought of Alpha on her tail,
intent on eliminating her gave Andi the cold shivers. Better she should take
her chances fucking him than that. Better she should just get on with it and
hope she came out the other side in one piece.

Lifting her chin, Andi tried to stop
the negative thoughts and control her fear as she walked up the deserted
hallway to knock on his door. The thick gray carpet under her feet made no
sound but before she could even raise her hand a low voice called from inside,

“Come in. It’s open.”

Taking a deep breath, Andi pushed open
the thick wooden door and stepped into the dim interior. Agent Alpha’s deep
voice always sent a shiver up her spine whenever she spoke to him on the phone
so she tried to keep their conversations brief and to the point. He wasn’t
belligerent or confrontational like Beta or sullen and rude like Delta and
Gamma.

Actually he was always scrupulously
polite and strangely, it was his cool, correct manners that frightened her so.
She knew where she stood with the other three men under her watch but with
Agent Alpha, well, she had a feeling that he could tear her apart and never
raise his voice or break a sweat while he was doing it. And then there was the
way he looked at her during their brief communication calls…almost as though he
wanted to eat her up. But that didn’t bear thinking about. At least, not now.

“H—hello?” she stammered walking
further into the apartment although it was the last thing she wanted to do.
Even in the dim lighting she could see that it was neat and clean—almost
impersonally so. There was no art or pictures on the walls and no personal
objects lying around. Of course, since the agents had their memories wiped and
personalities rearranged before they were sent into the field, it wasn’t
surprising that they had no individual taste. They were killing machines and
couldn’t be expected to care much for aesthetic values. Still, it was
disconcerting to see how very sterile Agent Alpha’s living space was. The
apartment looked like no one lived there at all.

“Hello? Agent Alpha?” she called again.
“I’m here for, uh, your stress relief.”

“In here,” the deep voice called to her
from the living room area. Taking a deep breath, Andi walked into the darkened
room. It was lit only by the moonlight falling through the white mini blinds.
Sitting on the black leather sofa was a huge, indistinct shape.

Oh God, that’s really him. Agent Alpha.
Andi had
never seen him in person before—she kept a careful distance between herself and
all the men she managed for personal safety reasons. She couldn’t believe how
much bigger he looked sitting in the shadows of the living room than he had on
the tiny phone screen.

“Come closer. Took you long enough.”
The deep voice was rough with need. Under the black lace bra she wore Andi felt
her nipples tighten in fear for the second time that night.

“I…I came as soon as I could,” she
forced herself to say. “I…I’m sorry.”

“No need to apologize. You know what I
need and how bad I need it. Now come here.” He beckoned with one hand. Biting
her lower lip, she forced herself to move forward. There was a coffee table in
front of the couch and she nearly stumbled over it in the dark.

“Hey, watch it.” A hand so big it felt
like a catcher’s mitt shot out to catch her, supporting her by her upper arm,
and then dragged her around the table. Before she knew it she was standing
between his spread thighs. “You girls aren’t usually so clumsy,” he rumbled. His
face was hidden in the shadows but his eyes gleamed in the dim light with what
might have been amusement.

“Well if you wouldn’t keep it so dark
in here maybe I could see where I was going!” Andi spat the words angrily, her
nerves getting the better of her.

The hand on her arm tightened, pulling
her closer against her will. “What did you say?” Agent Alpha’s voice was a
warning rumble.

“I…nothing. I just can’t see anything
in the dark. I don’t have genetically modified eyesight or whatever it is they
did to you guys during conditioning.”

Andi realized she was babbling and
forced herself to stop. This close she could actually smell him, a spicy kind
of musk made up of leather and clean sweat. It was a very masculine smell, a
frightening smell as far as Andi was concerned.

But she wasn’t the only one using her
nose. From the darkness in front of her came a low sniffing sound. Suddenly
Agent Alpha’s voice hardened.

“You’re not what the Agency usually
sends over. Who are you?” He reached for a lamp beside the couch and suddenly
the room was flooded with muted golden light.

“I…I’m sorry, I know I’m not what you
expected,” Andi stuttered, blinking in the sudden brilliance.

She was trying to focus on his face but
she was afraid to meet his piercing blue eyes. He had black hair cut short to
his scalp and features that looked like they’d been carved out of some
unforgiving rock. A surprisingly full and sensuous mouth balanced out his
chilly eyes and knife blade nose. He was wearing a pair of black leather pants
and nothing else and she couldn’t help looking at his muscular chest. It was
smooth and bare except for the tattoo of a wolf’s head on his upper right
pectoral. She wondered if the Agency had put it there to identify him or if
he’d had it before he was inducted into the program.

“Damn right you’re not what I
expected.” The look in his eyes made her so nervous that Andi started babbling
again, trying to keep her mind off of what was about to happen to her.

“I would have sent one of the girls but
they were all, er…occupied and the best one is in the shop and so there was no
other choice but to come myself and I’m sorry because I know I’m not what you
wanted but—”

“You’re real.” The lust in his voice
was unmistakable.

“I…what?” Andi looked at him, meeting
his pale blue eyes for the first time. He stared at her so intently that she
soon had to drop her own eyes, unable to stand the intensity of his gaze.

“I said, you’re
real.
A real
woman. Not one of those fucking whore dolls they always send us.”

“The girls, yes. They were all busy or
broken tonight. That’s how you ended up with me. I’m so sorry—”

“I’m not,” he cut her off. “Do you know
how long it’s been since I’ve been with a real woman, not some fake collection
of silicone and collagen run by a microchip?”

“Agent Alpha, I—”

“Matt,” he said, still looking intently
into her face. “My name—my real name—is Matt. Bet you didn’t know that, did
you, Andrea?”

Andi didn’t know what surprised and
frightened her more—the fact that Agent Alpha knew his own real name or the
fact that he knew hers. In either case it pointed to a break-down in his
conditioning. She was going to have to be very careful here.

“How…how do you know your name?” she
asked, starting with the obvious question.

He shrugged shoulders that were easily
twice as broad as hers. “It just came to me. I’d been having dreams…flashes of
people I used to know, things I used to do. Did you know I played in chess
tournaments and that I collected baseball cards when I was a kid?”

“I…” Andi swallowed and heard a dry
clicking in her throat. “They didn’t really give me any background on anyone
when they set me up here.”

He laughed, a dry, humorless sound.
“That’s because they don’t give a shit about any of us. We’re all expendable.
Even you, sweetheart. That’s how you ended up here tonight, isn’t it?”

“Please…” Andi could feel her pulse
pounding in every part of her body at once. “Please don’t kill me.”

“Why would I kill you?” His voice
softened and the hand on her arm relaxed a little.

“B-because, that’s what you do,” Andi
stuttered.

“Not any more.” Black eyebrows came
down over his ice blue eyes and he scowled. Then he gave Andi a searching look.
“I’m not going to kill you, but the damn conditioning makes it impossible for
me to just let you go. You know what I need.”

“I…I know.” Andi fumbled with the
buttons on her blouse with numb fingers.
Have to get this over with…

“Stop.” Agent Alpha—or Matt as she
supposed she should think of him now—pulled her hands gently away from the red
silk blouse.

“But…but I thought you wanted…”

“I do want you. More than you know.” He
pulled her gently into his lap and buried his face in her neck, inhaling deeply.
He was so big she felt like a doll seated on his knee. “God, you smell so good.
So real,” he rumbled.

We’ll see how excited he is about real when I lose the bra and he
sees I’m a B cup instead of a double D,
Andi thought apprehensively. She didn’t
struggle to get away although having such a dangerous man so close was
triggering her fight or flight response almost unbearably. But she couldn’t
relax in his arms either. Not even the fact that his big hands rubbing up and
down her back and his warm breath on her neck was surprisingly erotic could
make her lose her fear of him. He was a trained killer and she’d seen what he
could do.

He seemed to sense her apprehension
because he pulled back from her and looked her in the eye. “Andi,” he rumbled
softly. “How long since you’ve had a man inside you?”

Andi felt her face burning but she was
afraid not to answer the frank question and she knew that he would sense a lie.
“Two…two years,” she murmured, looking down at her hands which were trembling
in her lap.

He sighed. “It’s been three times that
long since I had a real woman. Look at me, Andi.” He lifted her chin with one
finger, forcing her to meet his gaze again. “I need you tonight—need to fuck
you.”

Andi felt a shiver that wasn’t entirely
fear ripple through her at his coarse words. Not trusting her voice, she only
nodded.

“I need to fuck you. Need to open you
up with my cock and come deep inside your pussy. But I won’t hurt you.”

If her cheeks had been warm before they
were on fire now. Two years was a long time, she realized. A long time to be
without a man, a long time to go without being touched, being held and taken.
She knew that sex with Matt was going to be rough but if she could really trust
him not to hurt her…

“Do you promise?” she asked softly, looking
at him intently. The piercing blue eyes were half hooded with lust now but she
saw sincerity in them as well.

“I swear it,” he breathed, pulling her
close to bury his face in her neck again. “Now can you relax and let go with
me? I don’t want to fuck a block of wood—might as well be using one of those
damn whore dolls.”

“Are they that bad?” Andi asked
breathlessly. She had never seen the girls in action, she just saw the results
afterwards.

“They’re not real. They smell like
plastic instead of skin.” He inhaled her scent again as his large hands began
unbuttoning her blouse. He cupped her right breast through the black lace bra
she was wearing and Andi gasped and bit back a moan. “They don’t react when you
touch them.” He popped open the latch at the front of her bra and pealed back
the black lace, baring her breasts. For a moment he just stared at her and she
felt fear rising to the surface once more.

“Look, I know I don’t have…have as much
up top as you’re used to…” she began but he shook his head.

“Andi, they’re beautiful. Real. Soft.”
He stroked one bare breast with his large, warm hand and Andi moaned softly as
her nipple hardened under his palm. “Responsive,” he continued, leaning down to
take the nipple in his mouth.

“Oh!” Andi gasped as his hot mouth made
contact with her bare skin. She felt like a thousand volts of electricity had
suddenly shot through her. Apparently encouraged by her reaction, Matt sucked
harder, taking as much of her breast into his mouth as he could. He flicked the
other nipple with his fingers idly, making Andi squirm in his lap. The hot
sensation of his tongue lapping and sucking her bare flesh seemed to course
from her breasts straight to the tender cleft between her legs. To her
embarrassment she realized she was actually getting wet.

“God, you feel so good in my arms.”
Matt’s voice was low and hoarse with need. He shifted her suddenly so that she
was straddling his hips. Andi moaned as her legs spread wide. The leather mini
skirt slid high on her upper thighs, revealing the black lace panties that went
with her bra. Feeling slightly panicked and incredibly exposed, she tried to
wiggle backwards and pull the skirt down but Matt wouldn’t allow it.