Page 61 of Of Desire And Deception

When I felt that familiar tingling at the base of my cock, I laid the scrap of fabric over the side of Remington’s face, stroking her soft locks and groaning long and low as spurt after spurt of my come painted the panties. I imagined how one day she’d look up at me from her knees as I marked her, then fed every salty drop to that lying little mouth.

Grunting with one last pulse, I tapped my cock on the underwear and tucked myself away, wadding the panties up and slipping them inside my bag. I’d add it to my collection of everything Remington. It would go with the photos hanging on my dungeon wall.

From the chair in the corner, I watched as she slept, holding vigil until it was nearly dawn and she began to stir as the sedative wore off. Only when I was confident everything was fine did I rise from my spot and gather my things, running my fingers over the peony’s wilting petals before letting myself out of her apartment and ensuring the door was locked behind me.

I wouldn’t want just anybody to have access to my soulmate.

Chapter Twenty

My roots were getting out of control, my nearly black natural hue peeking through the light blonde. I should have picked up a box of dye and put it to rights, so I didn’t have to worry about maintenance, but instead, I called around to salons until I found one with same-day openings. By the afternoon, the dark had been bleached, and I looked more like the person I had the freedom to be at Deception.

Wynn had been audacious and unapologetic. Wynn lived for the rush of danger and intrigue. Wynn loved Cosimo.

Only, I was beginning to think that Wynn wasn’t just a cover identity. She was me. The part of me I’d kept locked away because it might disappoint my father or fly in the face of society’s expectations. After nearly thirty years, hiding who I was seemed futile.

My father was dead, and my career was hanging on by a tremulous thread. I couldn’t get through an undercover operation without sympathizing with the target. Even with the operation over, I still felt something drawing me back to Deception. That’s why I found myself driving past the business on the way home from the salon, even though it was on the opposite side of the city.

I parked at the curb across the street, my car idling and the heat blasting to compete with the frigid air outside. Tiny snowflakes fell gently from the graphite sky, melting on the windshield. The gusting wind blew the white dust in swirling patterns over the street and sidewalk. Soon enough, it would form icy drifts.

My chest ached with the need to climb out of my seat and walk through the front door, past the guard and bar, and into the hall where I might find Cosimo in his office. Was he wondering where I’d gone? There hadn’t been time to sever our relationship, and I don’t think I could have brought myself to end what had turned into very real feelings. But I didn’t get out of the car. I used my phone to place a dinner order and threw the car into gear, pulling away from the curb and joining the first of the rush hour traffic.

It was insanity pulling up to Angelo’s and giving my real last name to the hostess so she could get my dinner order. Men in black suits like Cosimo had worn on our date sat at a table, glancing at me as they ate. Sure, it could have been because it was Sunday, but I was paranoid that they would somehow know who I was, and I quickly lost my nerve. If the server hadn’t returned then with a bag of my food, I would have bolted and fixed some ramen at home. I murmured my thanks and hurried out, breathing a sigh of relief when I sat safely in my vehicle again.

It was embarrassing to be such a mess over a man, and one who was destined to be his own downfall at that. And there was still the possibility that the Neretti family was responsible for Trey’s death. I needed answers, and now it looked like I’d never get them. If I tried to use any Bureau resources, I could kiss my career goodbye, and I didn’t think I was willing to do that. I also knew there was no way I could bring myself to help in any operation that would put Cosimo at risk.

Was this what heartbreak felt like? A deep, aching loss of a person who still existed? I gripped the wheel, the stop lights blurring as my eyes filled with tears. It took the entire drive home to regain my composure.

As I stepped into the elevator, my phone rang, and I cringed when I saw it was my mother. We didn’t speak often, so I felt obligated to pick up. “Hey, Mom.”

“Remi.” I hated hearing my name. Mainly because it was too short to tell if she was slurring her words. I always hoped to find her sober one of these days. “It’s nearly Christmas.”

“I know, Mom.” I fished around my purse for my keys, balancing my phone between my ear and shoulder. “I’ve been busy with work.”

“Always work,” she muttered, irritated. “So much like your father in that way.”

I wouldn’t take the bait. If I defended my dad, she would cry and talk about he ruined her life by choosing a dangerous career and dying. As if he’d pulled the trigger himself. Sighing as she rambled about the holidays, I shuffled down the hall, stopping myself before stepping on another white peony. It was the second of its kind I’d seen this week. Somebody on my floor must be getting them.

I reached down and picked up the flower, brushing my fingers over its petals. They reminded me of Cosimo, and I could practically smell his leather jacket and the lingering cleaner on his skin. Tucking it between the fingers holding my food, I unlocked my apartment.

“Are you paying attention, Remi?” I heard the clink of glass on the other end of the line and realized she was drinking.

I set the food on the counter and deposited the peony in the glass next to the other wilting flower I couldn’t bring myself to throw out. “Sorry, I just got home. Say that again.”

“I asked if you’ll be coming home for Christmas. You can’t work over the holiday every year.”

The last thing I wanted was to commit to putting up with my mother for the next week or longer. “I don’t know yet, Mom. I’ll have to see if we’ve got the time off.”

It was a lie she’d never find out about, and it was kinder than telling her I never visited because she couldn’t stay sober. Every time I made the trip, it ended the same way. She would get drunk, start slurring, then fall over until I helped her to bed to sleep it off. Only as soon as my mother woke, she’d begin again, adding a little whiskey to her coffee because she thought a little hair of the dog that bit you was the answer to her perpetual hangover.

“You’ll end up like your father if you don’t get a life outside the Bureau.” She hiccoughed. “He was like you when he first started, you know. Always with that zeal for justice that overshadowed everything else. It wasn’t until you were old enough to miss him when he traveled that he started cutting back on his fieldwork.”

I was already emotionally vulnerable, and listening to her talk about my dad made me tear up again. “He wanted to spend more time with both of us.”

“If he cared so much, he wouldn’t have gotten involved with that Cartel business,” she hissed, slamming her glass—or maybe the bottle—down on the table. Another sound I wish I didn’t know. “But he had this naïve belief that he would make a difference. Like one day the Cartel would topple because he’d hunted down one more person.”

It was a story I’d heard hundreds of times since he died and even before that for the last few years of his life. My mother wanted him to retire and travel the world with her, but he would have never given up fighting for justice in his own way. Before he was killed, he’d been talking about starting a non-profit that would help counter the Cartel’s human trafficking organization. It mattered more to him than the drugs and guns.

“But in the end, they hunted him down,” my mother lamented. “Executed him like a rabid dog. And for what?”

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