The warm breeze on the outskirts of Houston lazily moved the girl’s long dark hair, pressing a few strands against her cheek while she stood with her shoulder leaning against the worn-out wall. Light-blue graffiti shaped like a heart under her shoulder seemed almost purposely mocking, but luckily she didn’t even notice it, staring straight ahead at the shabby metal door.
She took a deep breath and regretted it instantly. The bra — damn it — tightened again, its underwires digging under her ribs, and the thin straps cut into her shoulders, making her wrinkle her cute little nose in annoyance and let out a displeased snort.
‘Damn all of you and this stupid fucking assignment. This shit better end today, it’s dragged on long enough,’ she thought, adjusting the purse on her shoulder and automatically checking if her phone was still there. Her dark-polished fingers touched the cold case, turned it so the screen faced her.
17:55. The meeting was supposed to be at 18:00, so she could already go inside and finally stop pretending to be “Maria Hernandez — an exchange student from Mexico who came to study design and accidentally got mixed up with bad people.”
The door looked like it hadn’t been opened in ten years — rust on the edges, peeling green paint, a small barred window you couldn’t see through. Behind her, in the narrow passage between two old warehouse buildings, cars sometimes rushed by on the parallel street, throwing quick flashes of headlights and leaving behind the smell of burnt rubber and exhaust. Somewhere in the distance an overloaded truck rumbled, and above her head wires hung low, weighed down by old lamps that hadn’t yet turned on.
Maria — or rather he, the undercover agent with the codename “Griff,” who had been stuck in this damned skin for three months already — clenched his fists. The golden hoop earrings swung and brushed against his neck, and that feeling again sent a wave of nausea through him.
He counted to three in his head and was about to push the door when footsteps sounded behind him. Ordinary steps, nothing special, but something inside clicked.
— Oh, Maria, — a surprised male voice said, — What are you doing here?
She sharply turned her head to the side, her long hair whipping across her cheek. In front of her stood Tony, a guy from that “bad company” she had “accidentally” joined for the assignment and the one she (meaning he) hated the most. Tall, always in a worn leather jacket, with a stupid silver chain around his neck and a smirk that made you want to punch him immediately. He held a fast-food bag in one hand and a beer bottle in the other. Next to him, like a loyal dog, hovered Javier — lanky, with those constantly narrowed eyes like he was always suspecting something.
— Motherfucker… — she breathed out before she could stop herself, then bit her tongue and quickly switched her expression to a light smile. — Oh. I mean. Hi, Tony.
‘You boys better get the hell out of here while you can, because if I get stuck in this body even one more minute because of you, I’ll smash your fucking faces so hard you’ll regret ever being born. Especially you, Tony. Think I forgot how you grabbed my ass last week?!’
Tony’s grin spread wider, and he lifted the bottle slightly, as if clinking it with her air.
— Yeah, hey, baby. What are you doing hanging around here? — he took a step closer, way too close. — We thought you were supposed to talk over your designer stuff with Camila today. Or am I mixing things up?
Maria forced herself to smile wider, even though everything inside boiled like someone was frying her nerves over open flame.
— No, no, you got it right, — she answered, trying to make her voice sound light and a bit flirty, just like that stupid girl she’d been pretending to be for one hundred and thirty-two days. — It’s just Camila… well, she’s late again, as always. I decided to take a little walk, you know, the campus is going crazy — finals, projects, blah-blah-blah.
‘Fuck. I hate all this so goddamn much! They’re probably laughing their asses off at me right now, the whole team,’ flashed through her head when she glanced at the door again from the corner of her eye.
— Ta-a-ake a walk? In this alley? — he tapped his finger against the concrete, leaning over her. — In that little outfit?
“Little outfit.” God, she wanted to slap him so hard he’d be drinking soup through a straw for three weeks. But no. Maria wrinkled her nose like she was tired of his nagging.
— I’m… waiting for someone, okay? — she said evenly, a bit annoyed, like a girl who got caught doing something she didn’t really want to explain.
Javier squinted even more than he usually did.
— Baby, I think I made it pretty clear you’re mine, didn’t I?
Griff felt everything inside him tighten when that asshole Tony said that “mine” right into her ear. His beer-and-onion breath made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.
She instinctively twitched her shoulder, trying to move away, but the wall behind her didn’t let her, and Tony was already looming over, blocking the dim lamp light and the whole alley.
— Tony, fuck off, — slipped out of her quietly, almost a whisper, but with such steel in her voice even Javier froze for a second.
Tony only smirked wider. His hand slowly slid toward her waist like it was the most natural thing in the world.
— Oh-oh, look who’s being a little bitchy. — He leaned even closer, lips almost brushing her ear, and his hand pulled her in tighter. — Seems like you know better than me what I like, huh?
Maria — Griff — opened her mouth to throw something sharp back, but Tony didn’t even let her breathe in. His fingers gripped her by the waistband, yanked her closer, and before she understood what was happening, his lips crashed onto hers so suddenly it felt like the whole world fell into a pit with her.
Something inside Griff howled.
‘No. No, no, FUCK!’ the desperate thought hit him while Tony’s lips moved greedily, his tongue exploring inside like he owned the place, and his free hand immediately slid lower, grabbing her ass through the jeans. It felt like his stomach was about to flip inside out. Tony devoured her lips like he was marking territory, pressing so hard their teeth cracked together.
Everything inside Griff turned over: his stomach twisted with nausea, his temples pounded like someone was smashing a hammer against his skull. He — a former Marine, a man who once took down three guys with bare hands in Afghan dust — was now standing here letting some scumbag shove his tongue into his mouth. And the worst part was that the body, the body reacted differently. The nipples of the breasts pressed against his chest hardened, and a warm, filthy feeling spread between his legs, making him want to scream and rip the entire Maria persona out of himself by the roots.
‘I’ll kill him. Later. Slowly.’
Maria thought, trying to shift her gaze to the side and finally giving up on pushing that massive body away, letting her hands drop and starting to take quiet breaths through her nose.
Tony, pleased that Maria had “calmed down,” deepened the kiss, greedily pulling her lower lip between his teeth with a crunch, as if trying to rip it away for himself. His fingers still rested on her ass, pressing her in, like he was showing off his “possession” to Javier.
— Mmm… that’s it… — he muttered into her mouth, pulling back just a little before returning to her lips again. — I knew you were just putting on a show.
Maria, who had opened her mouth to spit out all her anger, didn’t manage to say a single word. Tony covered her lips again, this time rough, fast, stomping her protest straight back inside.
— Mmmhm… — broke out of her, sounding more like a whimper of pleasure than indignation. Tony translated it however he wanted, assuming he even bothered to translate anything. His other hand slowly lowered, placing his palm right on her right breast, squeezing it through the fabric of her top with the kind of confidence that made it feel like it was his own familiar toy.
Everything inside Griff snapped.
‘No. No, you fucker. Not there. Don’t you FUCKING DARE…’
— Whoa-whoa-whoa, guys, — Javier sang out, not exactly with concern, more like with some childish excitement at that moment.
CLA-A-AANK.
‘Shit! It's already 18:00!’ Maria thought, sharply shifting her gaze to the side, as much as it was possible when half her face was still pressed against someone else’s stubble and a tongue was still moving somewhere near her palate.
The door opened with a rusty screech — slowly, reluctantly, about thirty centimeters. From the dim hallway appeared three familiar silhouettes in civilian clothes: Sykes, Ramirez, and short-haired Kate, who always wore glasses way too big for her face. All three froze in the doorway as if they’d hit a wall.
Then came that exact second when time turns into rubber. Sykes’s eyes widened. Ramirez raised his eyebrow so high it almost disappeared under his bangs. Kate just opened her mouth but didn’t make a sound — only slowly lifted her hand to her face, covering her lips with the back of her fingers.
Tony, noticing nothing, kept going: his left hand still squeezing Maria’s breast, his right on her ass, and his lips pulled back just enough to mumble:
— Come on, baby, don’t play hard to get…
At that moment Kate was the first to snap out of it. She slowly, deliberately formed a circle with her thumb and index finger — the classic “okay” sign. Then, making sure “Maria” saw it, she held up one finger.
‘What?! A month?! THEY WANT ME TO STAY FOR ANOTHER MONTH?!’ Maria thought, eyes going wide, trying every way possible to show she disagreed, but right then Tony gently squeezed the hardened nipple right through the fabric of the bra, making Maria roll her eyes and pull her legs together for a long couple of seconds. And when she finally managed to get ahold of herself, she saw something else — Kate, with a questioning, surprised look, was now showing not one finger, but two.
Maria almost choked on her own breath.
Griff twisted inside like a beast slamming against its cage.
‘TWO?! Are you— FUCKING OUT OF YOUR MINDS?! I can’t survive even a month, and you—’
Tony, of course, interpreted her sudden shaky inhale differently.
He smirked, having no clue whatsoever, and shifted his weight slightly, pressing her body into the wall as if stamping the moment like a seal.
— Oh-ho-o, — he drawled in a pleased velvet voice. — Even shaking? I always knew you wanted me.
He leaned in again, kissing her once more.
Griff felt how the fragile, narrow body reacted stronger than he wanted — heat in the lower belly, weakness in the knees, trembling in the thighs. None of it had anything to do with wanting, but the body, the fucker, kept playing along anyway.
‘Would be nice to die. Right here. Just die. That’d be a pretty good way out.’
Meanwhile the agents at the door exchanged glances, muttered something to each other and, when “Maria” once again shifted her half-lidded gaze toward them, Kate — now not even hiding her excitement — was smiling and showing all 5 fingers, nodding approvingly as the other two colleagues were already turning away to leave.
‘What… five? Five months… right?’ Maria tried to put 2+2 together in her head, feeling her thoughts blur, as if someone was smearing them across glass from the inside.
But it was hard. Too hard, when Tony at that moment once again bit into her lower lip, squeezed her breast a little harder and whispered, leaving a warm wet trace near her collarbone:
— Mmm… that’s it, baby… I knew you liked it rough…
‘Rough… yeah… fuck?! WHAT?! WHAT ARE YOU SAYING YOU— ah…’
The sounds of the city were already dissolving in Maria’s derailed mind, which by that moment had almost forgotten that this was her first kiss.