Page 23 of Jacking Jill

Jack thought back to what Romeo Carmine had somewhat facetiously declared about women communicating and interacting in ways that men simply weren’t wired to understand. He scanned the room for Romeo, who was nowhere to be seen. Kay Steffen wasn’t around either, which made Jack think he should maybe stroll down some of the corridors to see if he could catch a glimpse of the mystery lawyer who’d once worked for the Federal Government on major drug cases and might now be freelancing for the Carmine Family, perhaps brokering a deal between the Carmines and the Zetas via Diego Vargas.

Jack needed to know more about Kay Steffen—especially about her departure from the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Did she leave voluntarily or was she forced out because she was dirty, because her moral compass was about as reliable as Jack’s dirty dick?

“No dirt whatsoever,” came Paige’s voice through the phone as Jack watched Nina and Jill stroll arm-in-arm towards the buffet table. Jill cast another secret glance at Jack, a shy smile flashing across her pretty face as she hurriedly looked away from him and nodded earnestly at something Nina was saying about the platter of Italian prosciutto. “Jill is cleaner than a cartoon princess.”

Jack chuckled at Paige’s little quip. “The cleaner on the outside, the dirtier on the inside,” he whispered without thinking as his cock drew all his attention to Jill leaning forward over the buffet table, showing just enough cleavage to make him uncomfortably stiff. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to say that out loud. Go on, Paige. What else did you pull up on Jill Hennessy,” he said hurriedly, making sure to use Jill’s last name in an attempt to pretend like this was all business, just the job, use her and then lose her, moral compasses, blah fucking blah.

“She’s from the DC area, went to college at the University of Pennsylvania, lived in Philly for a couple of years after graduating, working at the University Alumni Relations Office.” Paige ran through the facts with robotic precision. “Then she moved back to the DC suburbs, perhaps to care for her parents, both of whom died over the next couple of years.”

Jack frowned. His own parents had passed away not long ago. Jack and Ice had both taken early retirement from the Army to care for them during those brutal final years when the cancer took them both within months of each other—no thanks to his flower-child parents refusing to accept any modern pharmaceutical interventions like chemotherapy or even painkillers.

“How did Jill’s folks die?” he asked, trying to keep his tone unaffected and businesslike as Benson’s warnings whispered somewhere in the back of his head, messing with the cool certainty he’d felt that Jill was his, that this time his cock was pointing true north, this time it was different, this time it was real, this time it was . . . love?

Stop it, he told himself angrily as Paige’s reply was drowned out by the thunder of blood in his eardrums at the word love, a word Jack had used with cruel carelessness in the past, sometimes taking savage delight in how women reacted when he tossed it out there with a sort of morbid viciousness, like a part of him thought that if you’re naive enough to believe a guy when he says “I love you” after one night, then having your heart torn to shreds by Jack the Ripper was a learning experience that would help toughen you up for when the next shameless piece-of-shit hound-dog came sniffing around for a taste of sweet coochie.

Except now those memories felt like they belonged to a different person, like something really had changed in Jack, like this really was different because he was different, because she was different.

“You sound different, Jack,” came Paige’s voice through his swirling senses as Jack watched Jill glance at him again then touch her hair and say something to Nina before starting to head back towards him with a plate of something. “Everything all right? Listen, don’t let Benson get to you. He’s been quick to anger the past couple of days after coming back to Darkwater HQ full-time. Nancy says it’s the headaches and also because he’s annoyed with the slow recovery, thinks the physical therapy is a waste of time, refuses to take the prescription painkillers. His shin bone was shattered by shrapnel from the blast, you know. The surgeons put in a titanium plate along with a whole bunch of screws and rods. The pain’s got to be killing him.”

“Benson’s a big boy. He can take it.” Jack smiled as Jill approached with a plate of prosciutto and cheese and artisan crackers that looked too fancy to eat. “Listen, send me whatever else you have so I can look at it later.” He didn’t say Jill’s name. “And tell Benson not to worry about me losing my cool again.”

“Again? When did you lose your cool the first time?” Paige asked.

Jack frowned. “Wasn’t Benson listening in during that Bobby Carmine confrontation out in the parking lot? Thought you gave him access to my phone again.”

“I did, but only a few minutes ago, right before this call. Benson couldn’t have been listening in earlier.” There was concern in Paige’s voice. “Why, what happened with Bobby Carmine?”

“Forget it,” Jack said hurriedly as Jill sat down on the white leather sofa beside him, crossed one black-stockinged leg over the other knee, the thin-shaved prosciutto in her plate a dark blood-red that matched her knitted wool shawl that was sadly covering all her lovely cleavage now. “Too long a story for now. Bottom line is I need to be on my best behavior the rest of the evening. No snooping around the mansion. Maybe tomorrow the heat will be off and I’ll be able to do a little more recon. But right now I’m going to stay in the main hall, keep my eyes open for Kay Steffen or any other guests who pull out phones that could be burners. Can’t do much more here at the Carmine Mansion with a couple of goons watching me.” He thought a moment, his mind perusing the day’s reconnaissance and settling on that hotel-desk package with Kay Steffen’s room number scrawled on the brown paper envelope. Jack lowered his voice. “But maybe I can get something useful done at the Winchester Hotel while Kay Steffen is still here at the party. Listen, can you get Keller or one of the guys to drop off a package with some Darkwater surveillance devices? Leave it with the hotel front desk in a tamper-proof bag. Send me a message when it arrives.”

Paige hesitated, then said something to Keller, who snapped out a quick reply in his typically emotionless voice. Paige was back on a second later. “Keller says Hogan will drop it off. He’s on his way to Philly from New Jersey anyway, just in case you need quick backup. Hogan’s got a few miniature listening devices and a couple of other Darkwater goodies he can package up for you. It’ll be at least an hour, though.” She paused, then spoke quietly, like she’d already figured out what Jack was planning. “Be careful bugging Kay Steffen’s hotel room, Jack. If she’s involved, she’s going to be on alert for anyone who might be on Diego’s trail. The Darkwater tech is CIA-level stuff and should evade most bug-detection scanning devices, but you never know. If Kay Steffen finds a military-grade surveillance device in her room, it might blow your cover.”

“My cover is going to be blown sooner or later anyway,” Jack said grimly. “Diego knows my name, knows what I look like, knows I work for Benson and Darkwater. I doubt he’s going to show up at a crowded wedding and see me, but if Kay Steffen works for Romeo Carmine and she is indeed Diego’s contact, then once everyone meets, all the dots might get connected and my improvised last-minute cover story won’t hold up. Then it’s anyone’s guess what will happen, but it probably won’t be good. Best case I’ll be kicked out and won’t be allowed anywhere near the Carmine Estate again. Worst case . . . well, forget that for now. Either way, I don’t have much time. Need to move now, because maybe tomorrow I’ll have lost my advantage.”

“Roger that,” said Paige quietly. “Good luck, Jack.”

Jack hung up and hastily slid the phone into his suit-jacket inner pocket, making sure to kill the screen so Jill wouldn’t see her own photograph pop up in the stream of data-rich text messages that Paige was already sending through.

“Hey, sweetheart,” he said with a teasing grin, glancing at the sliced prosciutto on her plate, which was resting on her black-stockinged thigh. Jill’s dress had ridden up when she sat, and Jack’s roving eye followed the smooth black expanse of satin-covered leg as far as he dared. “That’s some nice-looking meat.”

Jill glanced down at the sliced Italian ham on her plate, then glanced at the leg-revealing hem of her black dress, pulling at it before sighing and raising an eyebrow at Jack. “I thought you were going to be on your best behavior.”

Jack leaned his body back, holding his arms wide in indignant protest. “How is that misbehaving?!” He managed to hold the innocent expression long enough to draw a giggle from Jill. Then he sighed and, with his arms still stretched, sank back into the sofa. He lowered his outstretched arms slowly, making sure his left arm came down snugly over Jill’s shoulder in a movie-theater move he’d perfected during middle school. “Now this, on the other hand, could most certainly be construed as bad behavior,” he whispered with a sly grin as he nestled Jill close to him on their little sofa-nest with a panoramic view of the vast hall crowded with guests. “Learned this move in middle school. You know it, I presume?”

Jill shrugged. “Nobody ever tried the stretch-and-put-your-arm-around-her move on me during middle school,” she said, leaning against his body and biting on a cracker the shape of a snowflake. “My first date was high-school prom.”

Jack frowned, glancing at her face to make sure she wasn’t joking. He wondered if that’s what Paige had meant with the “clean as a cartoon princess” comment. At first the idea that Jill didn’t have a lot of experience calmed his uncharacteristically jealous heart. But then a dreadful splinter of guilt stabbed through him when he remembered Benson’s words, knew that he couldn’t let himself get pulled into something that might compromise the bigger mission.

But damn, he was very much in danger of getting pulled in.

And from the way Jill was leaning against his body and laughing at jokes that had perhaps scandalized her earlier, Jack wondered if she was getting pulled in too.

Pulled in by not just his cocky charm but by his protective posturing. Jack sensed it in the way Jill was snuggled into his big body, her ass angled almost sideways so her soft cushion pressed against his hard hip-bone. Jack’s own body was half-turned to support her as they watched the wedding guests float around them like extras in a surreal movie-set, and they were quite literally joined at the hip right now.

Jack said nothing for a long blissful moment, letting the raw electricity rip through him from the way her body felt against his. His arm was still around her shoulders, his fingertips grazing her bare arm beneath that red wool shawl that she’d knitted herself. Jack could feel goosebumps prick up on Jill’s smooth skin even though it was toasty warm in the hall.

She looked at him now, a flash of something hot streaking across her rosy-red cheeks, like she felt the electricity too, sensed that something was happening here.

Don’t hurt her, you piece of shit, Jack warned himself when he remembered that this woman wasn’t some party-girl who’d been around the block a few times and would be just fine with a man like Jack moving along after a mutually pleasurable night or two together. This woman was different, and if he kept pulling her in, kept pulling himself in . . .

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