© Nora Quick 2013
Chapter Nine
"Safe house" was a total misnomer. Jessie was taken to an apartment building a good ten blocks from the beach. It was new construction, lacking in personality, and the building was one of several, the parking lot a maze.
"Hard to find someone in here," the female agent told her as Jessie stared around.
Agent Soto was about her age, petite and pretty, but her personality was pure steel. Jessie liked her instantly. Soto's partner Klein was another matter. Three times in the drive over he'd pestered Jessie about remembering the events of that long-ago night, even offering to hypnotize her. He was tall, skinny, pale, his face hidden behind a bad haircut and large glasses. He only let up when Julian yelled at him. Klein and Soto were both young, but Soto seemed to have the right amount of patience for that line of work.
Henry had had to say goodbye at the office. He'd tried to kiss her lips but she gave him her cheek, feeling guilty. If she had any sense she'd tell him about Julian, but what would she confess? That she and her case handler were bumping uglies on the down low for no particular reason aside from unreasoning animal lust?
With no idea what to do she had just gone with the flow, and let Julian herd her out to an SUV with what he called "the second shift crew." Now they walked her up to the second floor on back stairs that were completely closed off from view, and the younger agents spoke like comfortable old friends.
At Jessie's heaving sigh Soto took pity. "The entire building is ours. You're in the center of the top floor, on either side are apartments staffed twenty-four-seven with agents. There are three other...witnesses in the building," Soto said. "As the old man considers you high-priority one of us will be stationed inside, one outside, and one down in the car."
Julian opened the door to the apartment and turned on the light. "Plus the guard at the gate is one of ours. You're completely safe, Jessie."
"I'll take door duty first," Klein said, pulling a folding metal chair from just inside and setting it up. "May as well get the most boring station out of the way."
"You take inside," Julian told Agent Soto. "I'll go down to the car. Change at midnight."
"Sounds good. I like being inside now, I can catch the nightly news," Soto said.
Jessie watched him go and then looked around. It was a typical sterile apartment, white walls, beige carpet seemingly designed to attract stains, and basic furniture straight from Ikea. She'd seen it in movies dozens of times and found the reality novel. The kinds of towns she'd spent ten years sticking to usually had home made décor, inherited furniture, and utensils liberated from any hotel or restaurant in the area the closed. The result was an explosion of personality, while this apartment was nothing but restraint.
"You watch TV much?" Soto asked.
"Not really. The places I spent most of my time in didn't have television access as a rule."
"Ten years...that's a long time to be on the run. How did you disappear so well?" She flopped on the couch and Jessie took the matching padded chair. "I ask because you'd be surprised how many people do it. If you came on as a consultant we could pay you, maybe catch a few of these bastards."
"It's not that hard. There are corners of the world that aren't so anal about keeping records."
Soto gave her a hard-edged look, a perfect cop glare, but when she met Jessie's serene, implacable expression she sighed. "There's food here," she said after a pause, digesting that answer. "Help yourself. I'm going to watch TV and cat nap. Usually the person on shift inside naps. And don't worry about Klein, he's my partner and he's an asshole, always has been. He's a good agent, but I don't spend any more time with him than I have to, I'd recommend the same."
Jessie wandered into the kitchen and poured a glass of milk, finding a box of Nilla wafers. She hadn't had any since she was a kid and the little snack was comforting. She wandered finding two sterile bedrooms, a bathroom aside from the combined living/dining room and small kitchen.
She tried watching TV but was bored, and found some books in the larger bedroom. Curling up with a Sue Grafton mystery, the next thing she knew she woke in the dark of night. Peeking out into the apartment she saw Agent Klein laying on the couch in the dark, shifting in sleep.
She dragged her bag into the bedroom and found her phone, plugging it in before she realized it wouldn't work there. The disposable phones she used worked in South America, and she'd never upgraded to a phone with an international plan that worked on other continents.
She changed into night clothes, brushed her teeth, washed her face, and pulled out her contacts which felt dry and stiff. With nothing left to do, she curled back on the bed under the covers and fell back asleep.
The next time she woke, it was to the familiar feeling of Julian's body curling behind hers. "Your turn to sleep now?" she asked sleepily.
"Eventually," he whispered, nuzzling her ear.
She was tired but well aware that in just a few hours he'd go off shift, and she had no idea when the marshal service would send someone to scoop her up. Knowing it could be their last time together she turned in his arms and sought his lips with her own.
Julian slid his hands beneath her shirt, palming her bare breasts. Her nipples hardened instantly and she arched, rubbing against him, seeking more sensation. One of his muscular thighs slid between hers and even through her shorts Jessie was damp, aching.
He slipped her shirt off as she used her legs to kick the sheets down. He was already gloriously naked and in the thin moonlight filtering in through the blinds he was a pagan god. Reaching up, she loosened his hair and let it flow darkly over his shoulders.
"I love the way you look with it down."
He cupped her cheek, thumb stroking the corner of her lips. "Your eyes. They're green."
'"I took out the contacts, this is my natural color."
"Beautiful," he murmured and dipped his head.
As he sipped at her, their tastes mingling, he struggled with her shorts until they were off and she was naked. He enveloped her, hands stroking everywhere, mouth sliding down her neck. She stroked the sleekly defined lines of his muscles of hi back and sides, too anxious to wait.
Slipping her hand between them she found his cock already hard, and guided it to her pussy, stroking herself with him. His groan covered hers and Julian moved her to her back, sliding between her thighs.
"Jessie, look at me," he said as his the broad tip of his cock teased her opening.
She met his gaze and he slid in, slow and sure, stretching her, filling her perfectly. She wrapped her legs around his waist, ankles locking as she bowed her back, aching for more.
"Open your eyes," he ordered when they fluttered close.
She did, whimpering when their hips met. Jessie clasped his large biceps, squeezing as she panted, and he kept still. Groaning out a wordless plea, she tried to thrust from below but it was impossible. He was marking her, it was a feral claiming and she knew that, but her body just wanted the glorious release it had been promised.
