Games Girls Play Read online

  Jane cried out, the air over Rose’s clit making her jump and groan. Oh no way. No way was Jane pushing her over first.

  She wiggled, getting better purchase so she could bury her face against Jane’s mound, her lips coated with sugar, tongue stretched to its limit.

  Guttural sounds poured out of Jane, from the mouth sealed to Rose’s cunt. She felt it when Jane began to shake. That’s it. Just like that. Her lady.

  Come on.

  Jane groaned, her muscles fluttering, gripping her fingers tight. Fuck, yes. She sucked hard, tongue flicking wildly, giving Jane all she had.

  “Rose!” Jane pushed back a tiny bit, shaking, moaning. Coming for her.

  She loved that, getting her own back both professionally and personally. Jane and her, they played a mean game of one-upmanship. Speaking of… She turned her head and nibbled Jane’s thigh.

  “Damn, girl.” Jane whooped for breath, then went back to licking her with long, lazy strokes, teasing her clit with playful, sucking kisses that didn’t give her the friction she needed.

  “Jane…” She bit out the name, nails sliding on Jane’s thighs.

  Tongue flicking, Jane worked her mercilessly, still breathing hard from the orgasm which just added another layer of sensation. She gasped, open-mouthed, breath huffing from her lips.

  “So pretty,” Jane murmured. “Sweet.”

  “Please, honey. Fuck, touch me.”

  “Like this?” Three fingers slid into her pussy again, Jane’s thumb tapping at her back entrance.

  “Jane…” She arched, her heels thrumming on the bed, her belly so tight it hurt.

  “Come for me, baby.” Jane sucked her clit again and again, fingers working deep.

  The tension inside her ratcheted up and up, almost painful in the seconds before it let go, her orgasm shattering her. She bit her lip to keep from screaming with it, her whole self shaken to the core.

  “Good girl.” Jane dropped kissed on her thighs, her belly, her breast.

  “Not a dog, here.”

  Chuckling, Jane shook her head. “No, but you’re a bitch.”

  “Woof woof.”

  They both cracked up, clinging to each other as they laughed. Jane was at her best like this, relaxed, happy, ready to snuggle.

  “You said there was chocolate?” Jane nibbled and tickled.

  “I did. And pastry. If I get up there’s more coffee.”

  “No. Just the chocolate, then.” Someone was reluctant to let her go.

  “Mmm. I can feed it to you,” She rolled over, reached for the bag.

  “Yeah? I feel like Mata Hari.” Jane opened up like a baby bird, which looked ridiculous and hilarious.

  “Except we work for the same side.” Usually. Sometimes.

  “Oh, I just meant the belly dancer with bonbons part, baby.” Jane sat up and scooted around next to her.

  “I’d pay to see you belly dance, complete with the coin belt and everything.”

  “I’d suck at it. Too many back problems.” Jane popped another chocolate.

  “I’m not bad, in a pinch.” She could pull it off long enough to work a mark.

  “Not bad? Baby, you’re a pro.” She didn’t think Jane was talking about belly dancing.

  “I do a good job, don’t I?” She fed Jane another bite, fingers lingering on the soft lips.

  “You’re almost the best.” Jane licked the chocolate from her fingertips.

  “Almost.” She pinched one nipple, tugged.

  “Hey! No nipples during my chocolate.”

  Rose stopped, looked, then started laughing, deep, happy sounds that tore from inside her. There was so little to laugh about in her life that she was appropriately grateful when it came along.

  “Fuck, that’s hot.” Jane touched her mouth, her cheek.

  She sobered the tiniest bit, kissing Jane’s fingers. “More chocolate or more nipple, babe?”

  “More chocolate, then we’ll explore your nipples.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  Jane lolled back on the bed, chocolate staining her lower lip, and Rose leaned down, dragging her tongue across it to clean it. She got a kiss for her trouble. God, her lady was good at that and the chocolate made everything better. Rose snuggled in, fingers stroking the sweet, flat belly.

  She could touch that skin all night, watch the way Jane moved for her.

  “Next time you steal my mark, I’m going to beat your butt, you know. He was dangerous.”

  She snorted. “I’m dangerous.”

  “You are. Deadly. But he could have been messy.”

  Rose nodded, sighed a little. The bastard sold designer viruses to the highest bidder. That was one reason she’d wanted to make the kill, besides the one-upmanship. Jane’s way involved blood; hers didn’t have to, and there was no telling what shit he had in his veins. “It was my turn, you know that.”

  “Uh-huh. We’ll see with the next one.” Jane nipped at her. “Feed me.”

  “The next one and the next one and the next one. I’m taking a holiday in Spain.” She chose a caramel, loving the taste of burnt sugar and salt on Jane’s tongue.

  “You said. I like the south of Spain at this time of year.” Jane sounded almost wistful. “All that citrus.”

  “Olives and long walks in the sun.” The last time they’d spent too much time together there’d been vicious fights, accusations, but Rose had to make the offer. She had to, even if it wasn’t terribly wise of her.

  “Carriage rides, and the Cathedral should be renovated by now.”

  Oh, fuck wisdom. “Tell me you’ll come to visit.”

  “I will. I promise.” Jane never backed out of a promise and the smile that bloomed on the hawklike face warmed Rose to the bone.

  She fed Jane another bite in reward, this one pure dark chocolate.

  “Mmm. My favorite. Tastes a little like bread.”

  “Sort of like sweet Guinness.”

  “Yes.” Jane stretched. “What happens after Spain?”

  “Depends on whether my handler had my house sitter killed this morning, I suppose.” Rose was going to be really put out if Shelly’s people hurt Star. It was tough to find someone good to watch the condo.

  Jane chuckled. “Why was your handler at the house?”

  “She was on the phone, but she sent things to the house, knew I wasn’t there.” Rose hated when work interfered with real life.

  Frowning, Jane pulled apart a pastry and fed her a scrap. “That’s weird.”

  “That’s what I thought. I do everything electronically these days. Nothing paper.”

  “Be careful.” Jane lifted up on her elbows, staring into Rose’s eyes. “I smell a rat.”

  Was that concern? From the ice maiden?

  “Yeah? Okay. Maybe I should run home for a day, then to Spain.” Or just change her plans altogether.

  “No. Call your house sitter and have her send the stuff on to Spain. Then you can be somewhere neutral.”

  She nodded, chewing her bottom lip, pondering before feeding Jane another chocolate. Maybe feeding herself a whole pastry.

  Oh, chocolate croissant.

  She ate a bite, the wheels in the back of her mind turning. If Jane’s sixth sense was dinging, she needed to take this one carefully.

  The only person on earth Rose trusted more than Jane was Rose.

  “Mmm. Chocolate mouth.” Jane smiled for her, reminding her that she didn’t have to do anything today.

  “Croissant.” She found Jane a grin, another little truffle.

  “But it had that chocolate in it.” They were starting to get silly, laughing at everything.

  “It totally did. Buttery croissant for the win.”

  “No. Your skin is better.”

  “You say the sweetest things.” She straddled Jane’s hips, rubbing them together, letting her slick folds get Jane wet.

  “I do.” Jane chuckled, hands on Rose’s ass, pushing and pulling.

  “Obviously I’m not keeping you dis
—” Her eyes rolled, hips jerking restlessly as Jane’s skin gave her the friction she needed.

  “That’s it, baby. Just ride me.”

  She bore down, moving faster, pushing harder, buzzing on it. Her thighs shook a little, her breasts bouncing. Her skin felt tight, hot.

  “Fuck, look at you. You’re beautiful.” Jane tweaked one of her nipples, tugging hard.

  Rose cried out, throwing her head back. She wanted to laugh at the woman in ecstasy pose, but she didn’t have the breath. All she could do was come and come, over and over. Jane was fucking relentless.

  “Perfect.” Jane leaned up, lips wrapping around one of her nipples.

  “Evil woman.” She panted for breath, her muscles like jelly.

  “Mmhmm.” That tingled, all along her ribs, that buzzing little laugh against her skin.

  She leaned down, cuddling into Jane’s arms, holding on tight. Somehow she felt like she needed to, like she had to have that touch.

  Jane didn’t argue. The strong arms just held her tight, kept her close, their breathing starting to synchronize. Jane said that was a sniper thing.

  It made her feel like they were connected at the soul. Not that she would ever tell Jane that.

  The woman already had an ego the size of Texas.

  Good thing hers was the size of California.

  Chapter Three

  Jane sat on the terrace, eating a mile-high slice of tortilla espanola they’d bought at the market yesterday and drinking a cup of coffee. She glanced across at Rose, who was a vision in Jackie-O-style shades and a fluffy pink robe. It wasn’t cold, but it wasn’t warm, either.

  Rose was drinking coffee and nibbling on a meringue that was the biggest cookie Jane had ever seen. Maybe bigger than her head. The thing was stunning. Then again, so was Rose. Jane couldn’t handle sweets for breakfast, but the bread and ham she had on the side was amazing.

  “What should we do today? Lounge in the sun? Go up to the Roman fort and explore?”

  “Oh, I like that. A nice hike.” The fort had a Moorish palace attached to it with pools and baths and mosaics.

  “I can handle that.”

  How deliciously domestic they were pretending to be. She chuckled, and Rose gave her an arch look.

  Jane winked. “What? We’re cracking me up. It’s been days and not a single fist fight.”

  “You’re still a delicious bitch. A girl can’t work all the time, right?” Rose’s words had no heat to them.

  “Hell, no. Just don’t ask me to get a picket fence somewhere in Iowa.”

  “Iowa?” The look Rose gave her was hysterical, full of a horrified, wide-eyed shock.

  Jane cackled, slapping her leg. Oh that was fabulous.

  A piece of crunchy egg white bounced off her forehead. “You’re awful. Iowa. Me.”

  It occurred to Jane—not for the first time—that she didn’t know where Rose lived full-time, any more than Rose knew she had a house outside of San Antonio. Sometimes life felt beyond strange. Their relationship was safer that way, though.

  They couldn’t give each other up if they didn’t know how.

  “What are you thinking about?”

  Jane shrugged. “About normal folks.”

  Rose’s nose wrinkled. “Do they exist? Really?”

  “God, I hope so, otherwise I’m protecting a lie.”

  Rose nodded, then chewed on her bottom lip, worry in those pretty eyes. “Sometimes I think everything is, protecting a lie, I mean.”

  “That’s the job, for you especially. You do the close-quarter work.”

  “You ever think about retiring?” Rose asked.

  “Yeah.” Rosie looked utterly shocked at Jane’s words, but it was the truth. It was going to have to happen at some point and Jane was beginning to hope that, when it did happen, Rose wouldn’t make her do it alone.

  “I didn’t think you’d ever…”

  Jane shrugged. “I never came that close to fucking shit up with you.”

  “Oh.”

  They looked at each other for a long time, then Rose’s phone rang. Her girl frowned, looked at the screen, then picked up the phone. “I’m on vacation, Shelly.”

  Shit. If Rose was getting calls from her handler here in Spain, something was up.

  One eyebrow lifted. “Huh. I don’t know. I’d need more details.”

  Jane shook her head, the move instinctive. Rose was always definite about her jobs.

  “Email me. I’ll see what I see.”

  Jane watched closely, waiting to see what Shelly would do. If she refused to send anything by email then the job was dangerous. Too dangerous.

  “I told you, I’m on vacation.” Rose’s lips tightened, and that was a sign of storms on the horizon. “Now is a bad time to play games with me.”

  Damn. Jane reached over to take Rose’s free hand.

  Rose looked at her, then twined their fingers together, held on. Jane nodded. Yeah, she had Rose’s back. They’d had enough bitch-slapping to last an eon.

  Her girl hung up, then turned her phone off. “That was weird, Janey.”

  “What did she say?” She had a bad feeling about this. Like whoa.

  “That they’ve been at my house again. What the fuck is that about? They want me in Barcelona in three days to pick up a package. It doesn’t work like this.”

  No. No, they had rules.

  “You’re not a courier, baby. You can turn down any job. Just tell them no.”

  “I have, I thought.”

  “Huh.” She searched Rose’s face. “Be careful.”

  “Yeah.” There was something in Rose’s eyes, something worried and hard and shiny.

  Jane hated Shelly right then for disrupting that fragile peace, the silly sense of home they’d found. This time was theirs, damn it. Not work’s. Not anyone else’s.

  “Wanna go for that hike? Or do you want to stay in?” She could worship that tight little body some more.

  “I think we should walk, leave the phone behind.”

  Damn.

  Still, she would spend the time, love every moment of it.

  Rose came to her, kissed her, but the caress was fleeting, Rose’s attention somewhere else. Back at work. Jane would leave tonight, slip out under the cover of darkness like she meant to, like she had a job of her own.

  Her girl needed to focus. Neither one of them could afford to slip up, not with what they did. Rose didn’t need dire warnings either.

  Just a walk through Malaga.

  Chapter Four

  Rose watched her front door from a fourth-floor apartment across the street. She sat on the bare floor with her zoom lens, a cold pizza beside her.

  Four days she’d been sitting.

  Four days, Star hadn’t come or gone, and she knew her house sitter had her cat in a car heading south to Savannah, but the same delivery man had come and gone, box in hand, waiting for someone to answer. What the fuck were they thinking, letting strangers bring things to her place? And if they’d killed her patio hibiscus, she was going to lose her shit.

  There was precious little Rose hated more than people not following the rules. That was the only way things worked in her type of employment—you set firm rules and you followed them. She didn’t kill children. She didn’t kill along party lines. She didn’t torture.

  She didn’t let people cook meth in her house or whatever.

  Her cellphone rang, Shell’s name coming up. For the first time since she’d been recruited she wasn’t sure whether to answer. She didn’t want anyone triangulating her, damn it. She knew they could ping her since the damn thing was powered on, though, so she flipped it on.

  “What’s up, Shelly?”

  “Why aren’t you home? I need you to take this job.”

  “This isn’t protocol.” She only followed protocol.

  “Damn it, Rose, why are you suddenly falling out?” Shelly’s oh-so-cultivated British accent slipped.

  “Why are you suddenly acting like this is a fucking Bo
urne movie?” This wasn’t how this shit worked. This was a goddamn job.

  “Look, you’re the best I have, and I need you to do this assignment.”

  “Why? What the fuck is going on? This isn’t how I function and you know it.”

  “This is beyond us, dear.”

  “I want a face-to-face. New Orleans.” She wanted to look into Shelly’s eyes, figure this out.

  Shelly sighed. “I’ll see if I can arrange it. Time and place?”

  “Cafe du Monde. Tomorrow. Noon. Be there. I am not happy.” She hung up her phone, then turned it off and grabbed one of the burn phones to access the internet. She needed a few flights. New Orleans. La Guardia. O’Hare. Toronto.

  Something was askew.

  Really, really askew. As in one of the burn phones was gonna be used to call Jane, make sure someone knew where she was.

  This was a job, just a job, and she’d be damned if she lost control of it. Not now. Not yet. No matter who was trying to burn her, she wasn’t going to let them. She just had to start somewhere, and it might as well be Shelly.

  Rose propped one of the phones up to her ear with her shoulder, listening to it ring as her fingers kept looking for flights.

  “What?”

  “Something’s fucked.”

  “Where do you need me?” Jane sounded about as practical as ever.

  “I’m heading to meet S. I need you to…” Her voice trailed off and she stopped. What did she need? Jane to come and shoot Shelly? Hell, no. This was her job.

  “I got your back. When should we start check in protocols?” Jane’s clipped words were an immediate comfort.

  “Tomorrow at noon.” Things were fucked up, bad.

  “Deal. I got you, understand? No matter what. Permanent.”

  Chapter Five

  Jane checked her phone. Again. Rose should have called by now. She was supposed to check in every forty-five minutes while she was in NOLA, and it had been an hour and a half.

  This whole fucking thing was a setup. Jane knew it. She just didn’t know why.

  Rose was worried. Worried enough that money was transferred, that emergency protocols were in place. That meant Jane was on edge, ready to do an extraction. She wasn’t going to let her girl get burned.