“I bet if I lick your lollipop I can make you big and strong. Would you like that?”
Would I like that?
Why not ask if I’d like world peace. An end to hunger. A cure for cancer. Yes, absolutely! But I’m struggling to say something cool. Finally, master of bedroom dialogue that I am, I come up with this pearl: “Sure!”
It ain’t Hemmingway, but it gets her to slide down the bed.
Gwen isn’t as skilled as Miranda, but she’s working hard, and I’m responding in kind. We go from oral to something my former Commander in Chief would be forced to call sex. What Gwen lacks in experience, she makes up for with enthusiasm. I’m not getting every last ounce she’s got to give, but I’m getting plenty. And just when she gets me to the very edge of ecstasy…
My cell phone rings.
It’s a specific ring. I have four caller-specific ring tones, and I haven’t heard this one in months.
“Damn it!” I say.
“Let it go, baby,” Gwen says. “Tune it out. Keep riding the ride.”
“I can’t. It’s my boss.”
“Lucky?”
“It’s my real boss.”
“Make him wait. Call him back.”
“You don’t understand.”
“You’re right, I don’t. I guess you’d better take the fucking call. It’s not like you’re doing anything important.”
I stretch to reach for the phone, an act that disengages me from my lover faster than I’d like to admit.
“Asshole!” she says.
29.
“Creed, it’s Darwin.”
“What’s up?”
“I got a job for you.”
I jump to my feet.
“When?”
“Now.”
“Is it—”
“Important? Very.”
Here’s the thing about Darwin. He lets me do whatever I want, ninety-nine percent of the time. Even helps me by providing resources like body doubles, cleanup crews for people I kill, government airstrips, highest government clearance…you name it, I get it. But when he says something’s important, it means one thing: the country’s in danger.
“What do you need?”
By the time he tells me, Gwen is not only boiling mad, but completely dressed. I’m standing here naked, with the same handsome face she adored a few minutes ago, but I’m getting a vibe that our time here is done.
When I hang up she says, “Maybe I should be fucking him.”
If what I suspect is true, that Gwen gets off on fucking men she perceives as powerful, then Darwin probably is the man for her. Then again, I’ve never laid eyes on him, so he could be totally wrong for her. He could be anyone I run into on the street. Could be a woman, for all I know, since he uses voice altering equipment on the phone. In fact, Gwen is the only person I know who can’t be Darwin, since I was with her just now while talking to him. Then again, you never know with Darwin.
“I need to take you home,” I say, getting dressed.
“No. I’m going to buy an outfit. For tonight. I’ve decided I’ll be in the mood when Maddie comes. And no, you can’t watch. You’ll have to listen from outside the locked door.”
“I won’t be there.”
“What? Why not?”
“I have to leave town. It’s urgent.”
“You’re supposed to be guarding me. I mean, us. What about Connor Payne?”
“That’s what the phone call was about,” I say, lying through my teeth.
“Connor Payne is your boss?”
“No, of course not. But my boss tracked him down. He’s in San Francisco. I’m going there tonight. To kill him.”
Her eyes widen. “No shit?”
