He stands, says goodbye, and walks toward the west corridor. Mara watches him go with a thoughtful expression.
I stand twenty feet away with a cup of water I still haven’t touched, turning over what I saw.
Mara held the line. Kept her mouth shut. That’s good. But she also turned the spotlight back on him, and I saw what happened when she did. The blink. The edited answers. The deflection back to generalities. Tommy is a man who is comfortable asking questions and uncomfortable answering them.
Administration. Filing. Numbers. Stuff that puts people to sleep. Or stuff that puts people out of their homes and jobs when the money disappears.
I find Armen in the residential corridor.
“Mara didn’t give him much. But she asked about his past. He said he did office work. Administration. Filing.”
Armen looks at me. “That’s not exactly a confession.”
“No. But he blinked when she asked. First time I’ve seen him off-balance.”
“The question rattled him?”
“Well, Mara asked a normal question and he wasn’t ready for it. He’s spent years asking. Nobody’s ever asked back.”
54
STING
That night,everyone comes to my room.
First time. My space, my bed, my door. Armen raises an eyebrow when I tell him. Rogue grins. Vi doesn’t say anything.
Four people in a room built for one. It’s tight, the bed taking up most of the space. My books are on the shelf, my binders stacked in the corner. It’s the room of a man who keeps his life contained.
Vi stands in the center. She’s wearing the dress from the club, the salvaged one, and I can’t stop staring at her. Armen closes the door, Rogue locks it, and I stand in front of her.
There are no masks tonight, no dim light, no one-way glass. Just the four of us in a small room with a single lamp throwing shadows on the walls.
“This is new,” Rogue says from behind her.
“Your point?”
“Just observing.”
I pull Vi’s dress over her head. She’s not wearing anything underneath. She planned this, or she hoped for it, and eitherway, the sight of her naked in my room makes my cock so hard it hurts.
Armen moves first. Comes up beside her, his hand on the small of her back, his mouth on her shoulder, steady, and warm. Vi leans into him, her eyes still on me, teasing.
Rogue comes up behind her, puts his chest against her back, his hands on her hips, his mouth on her neck. She’s bracketed. Three men, three sets of hands, and she’s standing in the center of it looking at me.
I close the distance and kiss her, deep. My hand’s on the back of her neck, pulling her into me as she moans into my mouth. Rogue’s hands slide up from her hips to her breasts, kneading, his thumbs working her nipples. Armen’s hand slides between her thighs from behind. I hear the moment his fingers find her because her whole body jolts, and the sound she makes breaks the kiss.
“She’s soaked,” Armen says. Matter-of-fact, like he’s reporting the weather.
“Of course,” Rogue laughs against her neck. “Look where she is.”
We get her onto the bed and lay her back. She’s got three men standing over her, looking down, and she’s not intimidated, just looking up at us like a woman who knows exactly what she wants.
“Who’s going where,” she says. Not a question, a demand.
Rogue laughs. “Damn. Bossy tonight.”
“Sorry, not sorry,” she laughs.
