Page 36 of Command and Control: GHOST Operative

At first I think I'm the one responsible for the new placement, but then those fucking red toes drag against me. "Julieanne." Her name comes out strangled, but stern. A warning. What I'm warning her against, I don't even know anymore.

"Vincent." She says my name in the same tone and it brings that foreign stretch back to my face.

Another fucking smile.

No one’s teased me in decades. Even Heidi, the ornery lead hacker at Alaskan Security, doesn't tease me. She might give me shit, but she doesn't tease.

Julieanne teases me. Like I didn't just kill three men for daring to step inside her home. For making her afraid. For touching what’s hers. If I could, I’d kill them again for forcing her to know what it's like to take a life.

I'm tempted to call Amos to make sure the cleanup crew shoots all of them again. Just because.

"Well that was short-lived." Julieanne’s fully angled my way now, legs across the console, feet in my lap. Her temple rests against the seat, eyes directly on me. "You've got your angry eyes back on."

"I don't like that those fuckers were in your condo." It's an admission I wouldn't give anyone else. Feelings are irrelevant, whether they're good or bad. They haven't had a place in my life in over forty years, and they shouldn't have a place in it now.

But here we are, and I don't really know how to handle it.

"Is that why you went back?"

Her question is soft—just like she is—and there is no way for me to keep from answering.

"Yes."

She’s still looking at me and I'm still refusing to look at her, right up until she says, "That's really sweet of you."

My attention whips her way. "I'm not sweet, Angel Face."

Again, she rolls her eyes at me. "I know, I know." The foot against my cock slides, splitting my attention between the wrongness of her statement, and the rightness of her touching me. "You're an asshole."

I jerk my chin in a nod. "That's right." My voice is rough. Ragged.

Her foot slides again, and I grab it tight, pinning it against me. Because if she keeps doing what she's doing, I'm gonna pull my cock out and stroke it until I paint her pretty feet in my cum.

I might have done it anyway if we weren't already pulling into the little airport just outside of Nashville where my plane will be landing.

Julieanne's focus, thankfully, turns from torturing me to taking in the airfield. She sits up a little taller. "This is the airport?"

"This is it." I drive around to the hangar I arrived at less than forty-eight hours ago, pulling into the parking spot next to the open end and shutting off the engine.

Julieanne swings her feet out of my lap and turns to the door, like she's about to get out so I shoot her a warning glare. "Wait for me." I stride around the back ofthe Suburban and go to her door, opening it before she does. She either has to put her soaked socks back on or walk across the lot barefoot, and neither of those are anything I'm going to allow. I turn my back to her and crouch down. "Climb on."

Julieanne laughs. "Right. Really funny." She pushes at my ass with her feet. "Move so I can get out."

"I'm not kidding, Angel Face. Get on." She's not walking across the blacktop barefoot. There's no telling what she might step on, and her evening has been enough of a shit show as it is. She doesn't need stitches to top it off. Especially since I might rip the arms off anyone who tries to touch her feet.

"Vincent, you can't be–"

I'm tired of waiting. Tired of having her sit out here by an open door with the cold air soaking into her damp pants. "Fine." I turn back to face her, reaching in the opening to hook one arm behind her knees and the other at her back. "If you want to be difficult, we can do this the hard way."

She yelps, flailing a little as I haul her out of the seat, swinging her across my body. Once she's out, I bounce a little, adjusting her position so my grip is better. As I do, she yelps, arms going around my neck like she thinks I'll drop her. I snort. If I wasn't going to let her feet touch this shit, I'm sure as hell not gonna let the rest of her touch it.

I kick the door closed and start toward the hangar. This specific one is only used by a very select group, so it’s designed to suit a more specific set of needs. The man sitting in the glassed-in office at the front of the building tips his head at me as I pass before going back to watching the bank of monitors in front of him. I carry Julieanne intothe enclosed waiting room positioned right behind the office and set her down in one of the chairs lining the back wall. “I’m going to go get the rest of our shit from the car. Don’t move.”

She looks around the small space, her eyes going to the kitchenette in the corner. “Can I go over there to make coffee?”

I consider it for just a second, but then decide Julieanne probably needs pretty strict rules. She's proven she’s not a great listener, so I don't want her to feel like there's any flexibility. "No." I straighten when she scoffs. "I'll make you coffee when I get back."

I don't wait for her to argue, because I know she will, and I can't give her time. If I let her, she’ll pull me right back and we’ll stand here bickering like an old married couple for the next fifteen minutes.

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