Chastity Flame, page 11
Exiting the minicab, she saw her postman heading down the row, and for a moment considered taking him up on his habitual flirting. However, when she saw his easy grin and heard his friendly greeting, Chastity knew she didn't have the heart to jeopardize the one consistent pleasantry in her life.
"Back from the catwalks of Paris?" he chirped, passing her a sheaf of menus and generic solicitations. "A triumph, I'm sure, as always."
Chastity laughed as she took the papers in hand, parking her bag just inside the door. "Ah, but I'd give it all up for true love, you know."
Her postman sighed dramatically, a hand to his chest. "There's still hope for me then, eh? I can go on living then, my lovely. One day, one day for sure, I will earn your love. I will make you a very happy ex-model. You can get fat. I won't care. We'll eat ice cream and pizza."
Chastity laughed, closing the door on his retreating steps. Some things would not change. There was a comfort in that. It suddenly struck her that, despite all the whirlwind of change that was her job, she liked many things to remain predictable. Her flat, her postman, London—they should all be waiting for her return exactly the way they were when she left. Damien was a new wrinkle and one that was getting increasingly complex. I don't need that, Chastity thought. What she needed was to get Damien out of her system.
She had barely finished unpacking when her mobile tweeted to indicate a message. Looking at the screen, Chastity saw that she was being summoned to Greek Street. Although she considered walking in the bright Spring light, there was a mini-cab idling at the kerb when she walked outside, so she jumped in. Riding along, her thoughts returned with irritating persistence to Damien. She couldn't yet bring herself to think about how she had felt seeing him pop in the door of that Swedish hotel room. There was no way she would admit to the corny thrill of pleasure she had felt upon seeing him, preferring to remember how it was immediately replaced by six kinds of dismay.
Yes, six, she was certain.
As the cab pulled up at the door of Basingstoke Developments Ltd., Chastity renewed her vow to shake these feelings off and concentrate on work. Damien was now off limits. She didn't have to think about all those uncomfortable emotions she had been developing. It was over. There was no reason to have to ever consider him again.
She nodded to all and sundry on the walk to Monitor's office, feeling better now that she had made her mind up. Chastity was glad to have shrugged off those disorienting thoughts.
Naturally, it was a bit disconcerting to find Damien seated before Monitor's desk. He looked up as she came in, smiled and then frowned. Chastity attempted to conceal the myriad emotions that churned through her body. She could do this, she decided. It would all be forgotten in no time. Sitting down next to him in the other chair, she willed herself to ignore his perfect profile and squelched the urge to run her hand along the curve of his cheek or to meet those brown eyes. Her mutinous nipples, however, seemed to anticipate his touch and itched suddenly.
"You've met your fellow operative, 4CB? This is 12ZF."
"How do you do?" Damien said coldly, although his fingers were hot in her hand.
"I want you two to work together on this Wesenlund business," Monitor said, her fingers forming a steeple upon her desk. "I don't like the arrogant way he seems to think he's untouchable. I'm not suggesting we start an international incident or destabilize the very currency we're trying to protect, but I want him closely watched and I want information. Anything we can get."
"Understood," Chastity said, her voice crisp as the linen in her jacket.
Monitor cocked an eyebrow at her. "Something wrong?"
Chastity was silent. Monitor looked from her to Damien and back again. "Was there any trouble with the extraction?"
"None," Damien said, his voice even and clear.
"You do know you’re both level 0NR? No need for professional jealousy."
"Yes," Charity said, equally neutral in her tone.
"Then let that be an end to it. We don't have time right now for professional jealousies."
"Understood," the two said in unison, which garnered another look from Monitor, but she said nothing about it.
Reaching down, she pulled out a file from her drawer. "This is the latest we have on Wesenlund. I want you to get it down cold before you leave tonight."
"Where to?" Chastity asked.
"Helsinki," Monitor said, looking down at the open folder. "He's holding some kind of conference event there for Scandinavian and Baltic investors. You're Katrine and Harald Edmundson and you run a small internet company. Try to stay away from Wesenlund himself, of course, but see what you can determine about how he's using this event to effect the kind of change he would like to see."
"Have we got anything useful out of the hacker?" Chastity asked.
Monitor sighed. "Well, we have got some things that Kevin swears will be worthwhile, but they don't do much to tell us about the ultimate aims of Wesenlund's scheme. At least we can repair a lot of the security breaches that were made, although the little beggar seems to have shared a lot of his techniques with the general public of hackers."
"Shall we take the conference room?" Damien asked as he reached for the folder Monitor was closing.
"Take the blue room," she said, tucking one of the stray strands of hair back into the disheveled bun at the back of her neck. "We may need the grey room in a short while for strategy."
Chapter Twelve
Chastity led the way as the two of them headed out into the hallway and then to the small conference room. Damien closed the door behind them, threw the folder on the table and then grabbed Chastity by the arms, intending to kiss her warmly. She moved violently away from him, turning her back and striding around the table to put distance between them. "What the hell are you playing at!"
"What?"
"You're joking, right?"
"I don't understand. I thought you would be ecstatic."
Chastity laughed. "Ecstatic?"
"Of course," Damien said, his forehead wrinkling. "We don't have to keep secrets from each other!"
"I see."
"No, you don't," he said, slapping a hand down on the table, "or else you wouldn't be acting this way. Things were already wonderful—and now! Now we know. We're both on the same team."
"The team where fraternizing is forbidden," Chastity reminded him. "We can't do this. They won't let us anyway."
Damien waved away her concern. "What are they going to do? I know they don't like these things happening, but they must do from time to time. It's bound to occur."
"Yes, it does," Chastity said, unable to deflect the bitterness from creeping into her tone, "and they do put an end to it. I know."
Damien's demeanor softened. "It's happened to you?"
"No," Chastity said slowly. "My parents."
"Oh." He paused. "Do you want to tell me about it?"
"No. No, I don't. I don't want to talk about this at all."
"But, Helen," he paused, and couldn't keep from a grin. "Or do I call you 12ZF?"
"Don't call me, full stop." Chastity sat down hard in a chair and grabbed the folder of information. "Let's just do our job." After a moment of angry silence, Damien sat down, too, and began to flip through the papers. For a time, there was no sound to be heard except the shuffling of papers as they passed them back and forth.
Damien glanced over at Chastity repeatedly, but she pretended not to notice. Finally, he couldn't resist the urge any longer. "Your folks were in the biz, too? I don't think I've ever heard of anyone who's second generation."
"Damien," Chastity said, tossing a sheaf of photos back across the table. "Leave it."
"No, damn it! We have to work together, right? So we're going to have to get along." His fierce expression gentled. "You can tell me, you know you can."
Chastity sighed. Never in her life had she been able to talk about these things. The only person living that she was sure knew about her parents was Monitor, and she was not one given to chitchat and reminiscences. That part of her life had been filed away for so long that she had ceased to think about it.
Until recently, that is—what about her distracting thoughts on the job? And what about the sudden recurrence of these migraines and, well, let's admit it, she thought: visions. Chastity looked across the table at Damien, who seemed to be doing his best to appear meek and small. She sighed.
"I don't know. There's a lot I don't know."
"Tell me what you do know," he pleaded, folding his arms over the papers in front of him. "I mean, you know you can trust me. I bet you haven't ever been able to talk about this to anyone."
Chastity shrugged. "I suppose."
"Tell me, Helen. Or whatever it is I ought to call you. Twelfty?"
Chastity couldn't help laughing. "And what are you? Four-Charlie-Bravo?"
"I like the way you say Damien," he grinned, relieved that she was at least talking to him. "You have a completely unique way of speaking. You don't sound foreign, but there's something extraordinary about the way you pronounce things."
"I lived in Devon in my earliest years, then in Switzerland for a while and the States for a few years. In between, a lot of other places."
Damien nodded as if somehow this fit. "I was in Canada until six months ago, but I grew up here in London. I really did train as an art historian."
"Do you actually teach?" Chastity couldn't resist asking.
He laughed. "I am at the moment. I tell you, students are a lot scarier to face than most of the criminals I chase." She couldn't help admiring the sweet dimple that dented his cheek. "Did you know your parents were part of the team?"
"No, of course not. My father was a painter and my mother a journalist. That was all I thought they were anyway."
"When did you find out the truth?"
Chastity's mouth formed a straight line and she looked away. "When they were dead."
"Sorry." Damien was abashed. "Were you there?" he asked softly.
Chastity closed her eyes. While the images had consumed her in the weeks following the event, she had not consciously thought about it since then. "We had just returned to London," she said dully. "My dad promised a day in the park. We were going to Kew Gardens. My parents had bought a flat nearby and we had a membership. It seemed like a perfect day. The sun was shining, it was warm, not a hint of rain in the sky."
Chastity could see it all as clear as on the day it happened. She was wearing her favorite little sailor outfit that her parents had bought her on a trip through Japan. Her mother was wearing blue jeans and a black sweater with a square neck. It managed to look elegant and casual at the same time, which was exactly her mother, she always thought. Chastity's father was his usual rumpled self, his clothes flecked with paint of various colors. He had a sketchbook in a portfolio under his arm, but he had been convinced not to drag all the painting paraphernalia along with them.
"You'll be ages!" Chastity had whined when he stood, pipe in mouth at the doorway of his studio, considering his options. Her mother had joined her voice in the protest, so he had sighed and simply grabbed the small leather portfolio, content to sketch some pieces in the warm sun. Chastity had held hands with them down the stairs to the entryway but, once she pushed the door open, she had run down the block toward the corner.
"I was eleven," Chastity finally said. "We were going to the park. Kew Gardens," she added, smiling ever so slightly at the memory. "It seemed like it was going to be a perfect day. My mother was beautiful, elegant and terribly clever. My father was wonderful, funny and an amazing painter. I loved them so much."
Chastity hadn't realized that tears were beginning to trickle down her cheeks. Damien moved a little closer, but seemed to resist the urge to take her into his arms. She drew a long breath. "I had run out ahead of them, down the block toward the zebra crossing. They were taking their time as always. I was too eager to get there, to have the fun begin."
She could see the moment so clearly, as if the world had stopped, as if she had held her breath—though Chastity knew that she had been puffing from the exertion of running down the block. But she had turned her head just in time, had punched the button for crossing, looked back to see the hail of bullets that riddled her parents as they came down the front steps.
"I turned back," she said, her voice dull and low, her eyes wet. "There was a car going by. It stopped long enough to shoot them both. Bullets perforated their bodies as if they had suddenly become colanders. They jerked every which way as if their bones had gone all soft. I never saw the men in the car, though I did remember there were two of them. I ran back to see my parents, not believing, not wanting to believe—"
Chastity stopped. There were not words enough or sounds sufficient. Damien moved to her side and threw his arms around her and she let go all at once. She let go of the years, of the tears, of the anger and the loss. Sobs wracked her body and Damien never let go. She had not cried since that day. At the time, she had wailed and wept, covered in her parents' blood as she tried to hold them close, keep the breath in their bodies, but afterward, it had all changed. At the funeral, Monitor by her side, she had remained silent, composed—or was it just numb? At the time, she had been grateful not to be alone. Since then, she had not questioned Monitor's influence, even when she revealed to the eighteen year old Cambridge undergraduate that the hit had come from within the organization.
"Their own people did that?" she had said, a sinking feeling in her gut like a punch out of the blue. Chastity had collapsed into the chair, unfathoming, immobile. It didn't help at all to hear that the two rogue ops had been dealt with; such an interesting euphemism. They were dead. She knew that, but it did not seem to reach her in any effective way. It devastated her to know that her parents' love had provoked that hatred. The two agents resented their happiness—and considered them a security risk.
Chastity had been in Monitor's keeping since that day. Sure, she had been given refuge with a very nice older couple, Cedric and Maryann, but they had been her caretakers only. Monitor had been her mentor, distant and contained as she was. When had they revealed the organization to her? Thirteen? Fifteen? She wasn't sure. It always seemed like it was there. Perhaps she had suspected long before she knew. Perhaps Monitor had dropped hints so that she did begin to formulate suspicions. It was impossible to pick it apart now.
Damien's arms around her made Chastity feel as if all of the pain could somehow be assuaged. With her face buried in the crook of his neck, she inhaled his scent and the memories flooded back. It hadn't really been that long, but already the feel of his skin seemed imprinted on her fingers. Her hands moved down his back feeling the play of the muscles as he shifted his grip around her. Chastity moved her head so her lips could brush against his neck. Damien shivered. She opened her mouth and flicked her tongue against his skin. He squirmed even more, so she clamped her mouth down on the skin, biting gently the flesh beneath her teeth.
Damien groaned and shifted in his seat. He moved his hands to her face to bring her lips up to his. As their mouths met he wrapped his arms around her once more. Chastity thrust her tongue deep into Damien's mouth and he sucked on it with enthusiasm. The warmth of their mouths together was intense and she felt it warm her whole body. She hadn't realized how cold she had felt as the memories unfolded, as if a chill shook her to the core. The heat from their kiss felt restorative somehow, as if she had just downed a hot cup of tea. The thought made her want to smile.
Meanwhile Damien's hands moved from her back to her breasts, massaging them with slow circles, which felt wonderful. He didn't want to settle for simply caressing them, however, and disengaged from her mouth. Feverishly his fingers sought the buttons at the front of her blouse, freeing the access to her generous cleavage. His mouth joined his hands as he feasted on the soft skin. Damien reached around her back to unhook the bra and free her breasts to the kneading of his fingers. Then he leaned forward and took a nipple in his lips and she groaned happily.
Chastity could feel the charge between her thighs grow. She rubbed her hands along his back but it wasn't enough for her. His mouth and teeth on her nipple were driving her to distraction and she needed to feel more of him. Chastity pulled him up for a kiss again and Damien came reluctantly, keeping his hands on her breasts.
She slipped her hands into Damien's waistband, reaching for the flesh beneath. He was actually wearing boxers today, she noted with a secret smile. Moving around to the front of his trousers, she reached for the snap, popping it open and then sliding his zipper down slowly. Reaching into the warmth of its opening, Chastity felt the hard length of him, already stoked by their kisses and the taste of her nipples. She slipped her hand under the elasticized waistband to touch the tender skin of his erection, sliding her hand down the hot flesh, rubbing the ball of her thumb against the tip, already wet. Damien moaned happily.
Chastity got up and pulled down his trousers, releasing his stiff erection to the air, but not for long. She kneeled before him and fastened her mouth on him. In her mouth his heat was phenomenal. She took him as deeply as she could, slowly letting him slip out almost all the way, leaving just the tip of his knob between her lips as she swirled her head in a lazy circle before swallowing his length once more.
His breath came increasingly fast with little moans punctuating the susurrations of air. At last he could stand it no longer and grabbed her arms to pull Chastity up to her feet, where he immediately set to releasing her jeans, fumbling at the buttons until she was free, pulling them down around her ankles so she could step out of them, then thrusting his hand between her thighs to determine her readiness.
It was Chastity's turn to moan as his fingers brushed her lips and then poked inside her. She could feel the walls of her cunt twitch around his fingers as they explored, sliding in and out with maddening slowness. He pulled them out to tug at the hood of her clitoris, giving her a strong charge, an electric sensation.
"Do you want me?" Damien asked quietly, his deep brown eyes fixed on hers.
