“I wanted us to be free,” I say.
“You did it for us?” she whispers while people are honking behind us.
“I did,” I say. “And well, because they let me keep my trophies,” I add and snigger. “Now drive before that guy behind us comes knocking.”
“Shall he,” she says. “I am law enforcement.”
“Yeah, law enforcement who just stole a painting?”
“That no one can trace because it’s not in our car anymore.”
I grin.
“And, technically, taking something stolen isn’t really stealing. It’s returning something where it belongs. That’s how you reframe your memories for the polygraph.”
Instead of answering, she drives. She hates it beyond when I start with ‘technically’, and I love teasing her with it.
Thirty minutes later, she turns into the garage of our apartment. Well, technically, it’s mine, and she just lives there all the time.
“What’s up?” I ask her when we ride the elevator up.
“Nothing,” she says.
“I can see it, in your face, in your eyes, in your body language.”
She doesn’t answer me but stares at a point somewhere above my head.
“I don’t think I can be an agent anymore,” she finally says.
“But you love being one,” I say.
“I don’t know,” she says. “It was the only path, and now that—now that I got a glance at the other side, I am not so sure.”
“Are you saying you had fun stealing?” I ask, and she sucks in her lips.
She closes her eyes and nods.
“Well,” I say as a wide grin spreads over my face as I step up to her, my hand grasping the side of her face.
I kiss her.
Kiss her neck.
Push my leg between hers and my body in her.
She gasps in.
“You just stole the Mona Lisa,” I tell her with my lips against her skin, and add, “You’re a thief, one I have hunted for years now,” to reverse our roles for this role play.
I take the gun from her holster, take a step back, and say, “Reid Shaw, you’re under arrest. Hands up and on your knees.”
Her eyes flicker in pure delight at me as she bites her lips and sinks to her knees, hands up.
“You have been such a pain in the ass,” I tell her, derogatorily. “And I will make you pay for all the sleepless nights you cost me. Undress,” I tell her.
“Yeah, I don’t think so,” she says, and hits me in the back of my knees, so I fall to the ground. She wrestles me, takes her gun, not that I fight her much, and then she sits on me in riding position and presses the gun into my chest.
A grin spreads over my face as I grab her.
