Forced Assassin Read online

Fallan cried out from the pain in her nipple to the pleasure from his fingers. She was so close to orgasming.

  “Don’t come yet,” he warned.

  She cried out again, hating her own game. Why was it men always wanted the women to hold off from climaxing? Was it jealousy, seeing as they could only climax once throughout a session?

  Whatever it was, she was pissed off because of it. Instead of voicing her protest, though, she lay prone beneath him, enjoying his hands and mouth even if she couldn’t enjoy the ultimate benefit of what he could do with them.

  He lifted his head and glanced at her. She saw the battle warring within him.

  “What’s the matter?” she asked.

  “I want to fuck you.”

  “I’ve not got a problem with that,” she told him, smiling.

  “No, I want to fuck you hard.”

  “I’m not going anywhere. Do what you want.” To help convince him she meant what she’d said, she opened her legs wide for him to see all of her exposed cunt flesh.

  Bishop continued to stare at her. She sucked on her finger then placed it against her clit.

  “I want it,” she said on a moan.

  He grasped his cock and pressed the tip to her entrance. For however long it took before she was allowed to come, all Fallan could do was hold on.

  He didn’t push inside but pulled her to the edge of the bed and held her hips at an upward angle. Kneeling on the floor, he gripped her hips tighter and thrust all the way inside her. Before she could catch her breath, he withdrew then slammed back in. Nothing soft or nice, but dirty and hard.

  She screamed with a force that shocked her. He pounded into her. There was no pain, only the most exquisite torture of pleasure Fallan had ever experienced. She didn’t want it to end. She grabbed the sheets, holding them in her fists. His pelvis rubbed against her clit—a wonderful sensation.

  “Can I come?” she begged, wanting…no, needing the release of orgasm.

  “Yes,” he snapped, each thrust designed to send her further over the edge than the last.

  He tilted back and up, hitting a spot inside her, forcing her lower half further up. Reaching out, she pulled him down for a kiss. No longer would she be denied the pleasure of his lips. He pummelled deep inside her over and over that spot, making her mindless. She wedged one hand between them and pressed a finger to her clit, taking her over the edge to sweet oblivion. Her pussy tightened and she panted through the bliss. He jerked harder than before. With one long, hard plunge he erupted inside her, a loud growl spilling from his lips.

  Bishop stayed in that position for some time until he pulled out of her and collapsed on the bed, covering his eyes with one hand. Not bothering to cover herself, she crawled up beside him.

  She didn’t say anything and lay waiting.

  “Thank you,” he whispered.

  “Anytime.”

  He rolled over and faced her. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

  She was touched with how concerned he was but he didn’t need to be. “I’m fine. More than fine.”

  “I lost control.” He placed a hand on her stomach and made to move as if he was going to look down and examine her.

  She stopped him. “I said I’m fine. I wouldn’t have come if I didn’t enjoy it.”

  “I don’t know what I’d do if I hurt you.”

  Was he aware of what his words meant to her? Did he feel something more for her than the fucking?

  “You’ll never hurt me. I know that.” She brought him in against her body and kissed his temple. She rested his head on her breast and stroked his hair.

  Staring at the ceiling, she waited again, her body covered in a fine sheen of sweat. She wanted to get up and shower.

  He shifted his fingers, lightly caressing her belly. She let him.

  “I killed a man today,” he said after a long stretch of silence.

  “I know.” Fallan didn’t know how she did but she’d sensed a change in him. One that didn’t sit well with him.

  “I’ve never killed anyone before.”

  That confession surprised her.

  “I don’t know if you’ll consider me any worse for it, but I usually only torture people for information. I guess a clean death is more suited than where you pray for death before it’s granted.”

  Fallan stroked his hair some more. A tear fell from her eye. “Is that why Huntington was here? To make sure you’d finished the job?”

  “I doubt it. No one ever knows what’s going on in Huntington’s mind until he wants to tell you. He didn’t try anything, did he?”

  “Besides ask a billion questions? He was the perfect gentleman.”

  Silence descended on them again for a few minutes. Fallan tried to process what he’d told her. He’d never taken another person’s life before today but he had tortured them.

  “That stuff in the bag? You know, the one I was fooled into planting?”

  He nodded.

  “Was it really bad? I mean, was there information in it that would hurt someone? It wasn’t protecting anyone who’d done bad things?”

  “I can’t tell you everything.”

  “I know, but please tell me I wasn’t involved with anything to do with drugs or prostitution, or—oh God, this makes me sick to my stomach—child pornography?”

  “No. Don’t worry, it has nothing to do with any of that.”

  “But if I knew what it was it could get me killed?”

  “Go to sleep, Fallan.”

  She had her answer.

  Chapter Ten

  Dusk had been making an appearance as Huntington had left the cottage. Back in his office now, he withdrew the recording device from his inside jacket pocket and placed it on the desk. He wasn’t sure he could listen to it without having a stiff brandy first. Bishop had pissed him off, no doubt about it, but Huntington had laid the cards very firmly on the table—Bishop had to continue doing his job, with the addition of killing where necessary, or lose his life.

  Simple.

  Huntington took off his suit jacket and hung it over the straight-backed chair in the corner, the one he used for interviewing—he preferred that term to interrogating—those who needed a little persuasion to do what he expected of them. He grimaced at the thought of Bishop sitting in it. That man would know why Huntington had chosen the chair and the result wouldn’t be Bishop cowering and obeying every request—not without a few questions and making it clear he wasn’t happy, anyway. He had got too big for his bloody boots. Needed taking down a peg or two. But he was a damn good agent—their best—and losing him would be a big blow.

  Pouring a brandy from a crystal decanter he’d been given for twenty years of secret government service, he took a sip and relished the burn as the liquid went down his throat. It hit his belly and warmed there, heat spreading to his limbs, relaxing them and his mind. He locked the door, then sat at his desk and toed off his shoes, confident the next phase would happen. Bishop would go for Waterman and whoever else got in the way, he was sure. This mission would be over soon. They had all the bags—he’d taken the final one from Bishop earlier. The government people involved were safe…and the information in those bags wouldn’t hurt to be used as a little leverage if those people chose to play up in the future. The only blot on the landscape now was Waterman and his crew, or what was left of it.

  And maybe Bishop. I’ll have to keep an eye on him.

  He sipped again, leaning back in his chair and closing his eyes. Bishop really was becoming a problem. Before, he’d done as he was asked, threatened a few people, secured whatever needed collecting or reclaiming, and did whatever the hell he did in his spare time. But now? Huntington grimaced. That woman had changed him, made him want what he couldn’t have—a normal life.

  She was beautiful, he’d give him that. Could see why Bishop had fallen for her. And he had, despite his denials. Huntington gathered Bishop had lied to him about his feelings in order to keep her safe, so when she was returned to her regular life she’d be
left to melt into society again, an inconsequential woman who didn’t need watching.

  I don’t think she does, either. She just wants her money, wants to go home and fix her life.

  But what if spending more time with Bishop changed that?

  He flicked on a monitor to his left and expected nothing more than the blank screen he got. Bishop had switched off the basement cameras, and Huntington wondered whether they were fucking now or had finished. Or perhaps they hadn’t even started. He’d told Bishop to get some rest before tonight. Waterman was best taken out under cover of darkness.

  He picked up his secure phone and dialled. “Anything?”

  “No,” said the agent. “Just the residents coming and going.”

  “So Bishop did his job, then,” he said more to himself than to the agent. “Good. No visitors?”

  “Not for the deceased, as far as I can tell. Just the usual rough lot who live around here.”

  “Right. Call in if anything changes.”

  “Will do.”

  Replacing the receiver in the cradle, Huntington swigged another gulp of brandy and wondered when Waterman would discover Lash wasn’t going to be reporting in for work any time soon. The agent stationed outside Lash’s flat had to wait until about four a.m.—that crucial time where drug pushers finally went to sleep and burglars hadn’t yet woken for their early morning raids—before he could make a move and dispose of the body. One hour, plenty of time.

  Sighing, he reached for the recording device and turned it on.

  “Frankie Lash is dead, if that’s what you’re here to find out,” Bishop said.

  “Good, but no, that wasn’t the purpose of my visit.”

  “What was, then? Planting a new bug I’m meant to be unaware of? Reckon I’ll tell Fallan everything, give her information she can go to the papers with? The government with?” Bishop’s laugh sounded more sinister the second time around.

  “No, I came to see Miss Jones for myself. It’s all very well having a report from you that she’s a good woman, but appearances can be so very deceptive, can’t they.” Huntington had meant it as a statement, a bold fact that he’d wanted Bishop to take the way he had.

  “If you’re referring to me in an underhand way, Huntington, just come out and say what you have to say. I’m not into fucking about, dancing around the issue, you know that. I’m a big boy. I can take it.”

  “All right. I think you’re going to go off the rails. I think Miss Jones has affected you, affected how you think, and your future performances may be in jeopardy because of it.”

  Bishop huffed. “I told you, she’s just a fucking job, nothing more.”

  “A fucking job—exactly. That’s the problem. You’ve fucked her, got involved with a person who is a part of this mission. That isn’t allowed, you know that. Fuck whoever the hell else you want, but your sexual partners must remain oblivious to what we do—to what you do. You’ve allowed emotions—”

  “The only emotions involved with her are those I get when I’m coming, all right? That blunt enough for you?”

  “It’ll do for now.”

  A shuffle sounded where Huntington had risen from the sofa to pace the room. “So explain this. She’s seen you in disguise, knew exactly who you were when you walked in. How is that? Did you tell her somehow what you’d be changing into for the Lash job?”

  “No, I fucking didn’t! Watch the tapes, listen to them. At no point did I tell her that.”

  “So how did she know it was you, before you even spoke?”

  “I don’t fucking know, do I? Jesus. Maybe she recognised the way I walk, my hands, the shape of my eyes, I don’t know. Whatever—she won’t be seeing me again once she goes home, will she? Doesn’t know my real name, doesn’t even know where the first hideout is, or this one. Your name’s as much of a fake as mine. So, she’s none the wiser. She’ll go home, pay her bills—because I’ll be giving her the ten grand myself if you don’t—and eventually forget all about this.”

  “I doubt it. Who could forget being kidnapped and fucked by her abductor?”

  “Are you implying something? It wasn’t forced, nothing like that.”

  “I know. I heard. Saw.”

  “So you did.”

  Huntington reflected now on how Bishop had said that. Three words etched with lashings of disgust.

  He really does care for her. Fuck it!

  Another shuffle where Huntington had walked over to the kitchen area and poured himself a glass of water, his tongue furry from too much of Miss Jones’ coffee. “You need information about tonight, Bishop. Listen to me very carefully. Miss Jones must not know what you’re doing. She mustn’t know what you’ve already done, understand?”

  Bishop sighed. “Yep. Go on.”

  “First, get some sleep. It might be a long night. I’ll call you with any information I get after I return to the office, but, if there is none, you’ll need to stake out Waterman’s place of business. We know he’s never home in the evenings, but we’ll post another agent there nevertheless. Once you deem it’s safe enough, go inside. Usual drill at first—find out whatever you can. Then do whatever you have to do. Once your job is complete, come back here and report to me.”

  “Exactly as I thought it would be. I’m not happy about this new turn of events, I have to tell you that.”

  “I know you’re not, but, like I told you before, it’s them or you, right?” Huntington had paused, a thought striking him, and he went back to the sofa. He’d leant forward, studying Bishop for signs of dissent. “Tell me, what would you have felt like before meeting Miss Jones?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your job description changing. Would you have refused to take anyone out? The way I see it, you had no one, nothing to live for, so us making you…disappear wouldn’t have been so bad. But now? Well, you have a little woman in there”—Huntington had tapped his temple then his chest, over his heart—”and us removing you from any and every equation suddenly isn’t an option, is it?”

  “Oh, fuck right off. Don’t try and make this out to be something it isn’t. I may not have had much of a life before she came along, but I had one and I don’t fancy dying. I’d have killed for you, all right? She has nothing to do with this, and I’m getting hacked off with telling you that.”

  “All right!” Huntington had raised his hands. “All right. I believe you.”

  He didn’t.

  Huntington switched off the recorder, mulling over the options. If Bishop continued seeing Miss Jones after mission completion, there would be no other choice but to have the woman taken out.

  Unless…

  Hmmm. I’ll think on it. She may very well make a damn fine agent if she learns to keep that rowdy mouth of hers shut.

  * * * *

  Waterman frowned. Frankie wasn’t answering his mobile phone—unusual for him, even when he was fucking a prozzer—and if he was doing some tart on work time, Waterman would have something to say about it.

  He called his other employees—all out doing their usual jobs of collecting protection money, duffing a few people up, the normal things his crew tended to do, as well as keeping their ears to the ground as to that bastard Rook’s whereabouts. It pissed him off he still didn’t know the man’s name—his real one, not the moniker he’d used when working for Waterman. He needed sorting, that one, erasing permanently. Frankie was meant to have gone to his hideout flat, picked up the goods and returned by now. Then he was supposed to have been out looking for Rook. Fucking Lash wanker was probably shagging some bitch.

  I swear to God, if he is…

  He tried Frankie’s phone again. No answer. He hung up then redialled, just a jab on one button. “Can you come up to my office?” No please, no thank you…no need. His employees did as they were fucking told or they were gone.

  Waterman waited. A knock came a couple of minutes later, and he straightened in his chair. “Come in.”

  What’s-his-name opened the door and walked in,
standing until Waterman nodded in the direction of the chair in front of his desk. What’s-his-name closed the door then sat, looking as though he was about to crap his pants.

  “I need you to do me a favour,” Waterman said, eyeing the man, sizing him up.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “What’s your name again?”

  “Gavin Brent, sir.”

  “Gavin Brent, right. Gavin, all my men are busy. Kemp’s no longer on my payroll, as you know, and Frankie seems to be unreachable. Looks like I’m going to have to go to Frankie’s flat myself. Trouble is, it’s a rough area, know what I mean? You comfortable taking me?” Waterman didn’t care about the man’s comfort, didn’t care whether he wanted to go or not. He’d be going.

  “All right,” Gavin said. “Shall I wait outside for you then bring you back?”

  “Uh, no. This isn’t that kind of pick-up. I need you to actually go to his flat and knock on the door. I’ll be coming with you. Call yourself my protection, if you like. You know, bodyguard.”

  Gavin puffed out his chest. Waterman reckoned the bloke would do nicely as one of his right-hand men, given a bit of training. He nodded absently. Yeah, he liked that idea.

  “Yes, sir. Fine, sir.”

  “Good man.” Waterman glanced at his watch. Fucking nine o’clock already. Where the hell was Frankie? He’d left to collect the bag hours ago. Waterman shrugged. Maybe Lash had decided to have a nap, the cheeky fucker. “I’ll give the tosser another hour to finish shagging his bitch or whatever the hell he’s doing, then we’ll go, okay?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Off you go, then. Make yourself a cuppa. A bit of something to eat, yeah?”

  “Yes, sir, thank you.” Gavin rose and left the room.

  Waterman waited for the door to click closed before he picked up his phone again. He dialled Frankie’s number, anger starting a slow burn inside him. Yeah, he’d been mildly annoyed before, but now he was getting a bit narked—more than a bit narked. If Frankie didn’t come waltzing in here within the hour, stupid grin on his ugly mug, then Waterman would have to accept that either something was dodgy or Frankie had run into a bit of trouble.