Page 79 of The Truths that Deceive

Calista stills. “He’s heading this way now.”

I look around. “How do you know that?”

“Because,” she says, something like panic and betrayal quaking her voice, “I know him.”

I’m about to ask who when it dawns on me.

Right as she says it.

“It’s Johnny, my missing field agent.”

Fuck.

Chapter 22

Calista

Panic scrabbles little cold claws in my throat and twists my stomach.

Smith seems relaxed, he still pets my pussy like he owns it, touches me like I wish I didn’t want him to.

But I know he’s not. He’s anything but relaxed.

I can feel the buzz of live-wire tension in him. It’s vibrating, slightly heated, a different version of the hunter I know as Smith.

The sexual hunter Smith, I mean.

He’s still a hunter, a deadly creature, but this vibration isn’t fueled with a sexual energy. Just like the lack of interest on his face as he looked around the club earlier. I’m not saying he wasn’t noticing or finding any of the explicit sex acts and extreme nakedness—that woman he got the mask from had her pussy pried open with body jewelry, for fuck’s sake—hot, but he was dispassionate like he had what he needed right next to him.

Me.

That was all an act, a hunter hunting a different, nonsexual prey.

This… This is a man weighing up lightning fast any and all options.

And it’s terrifying.

Because I can almost feel the tension beneath the looseness of muscle in his jaw as he works out what to do.

“Kiss me, Calista.”

Startled, I lean in, my mouth on his. And he drives his tongue between my lips in a deep and primal kiss, then he licks down to my chin, and he sucks that. It takes a moment for the weird intimacy of it all to fall away and for me to realize he’s talking to me.

“The average-height guy? Brown hair, facial scruff? That’s Johnny?”

“Yes.”

“How well does he know you?”

“We’ve met a bunch of times, but most of our relationship’s been on the phone or online.”

“He knows you,” he says flatly. “He’s a fucking agent.”

Smith pulls his hand from between my thighs and threads it in the locks of the wig and kisses up to my ear. “I need you to stay calm and look completely into me.”

“A hard ask.”

“Try.” His sarcasm breaks the tension a little, and I relax. “Good girl. Okay, here’s the deal. There are bathrooms on the top level. Walk past them to the fancy ones, the suites. They each have their own individual locks. Go into the last one on the right?—”

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