The Games We Play

6. Five - X

Five - X

I slam my car into park at the airstrip. My hair sticks out at odd angles in the rearview mirror, and I smooth it down with my hand. As I roll up my sleeves, I resist the impulse to return to Puppet’s house and make her beg for considering the idea of letting another man touch her like she almost did with that frat boy.

I gave up drinking years ago. It does nothing but make me sloppy, and I can’t afford to be sloppy. But now, the idea of flying to an unknown place to take a life because someone paid the price doesn’t make my blood sing like it once did. She’s infiltrated my every sense. I shake my head as if I can shake her out of my veins.

An engine revs beside me, and I roll my eyes. This is the last thing I needed tonight.

Straightening my tie, I slip on my sunglasses even though it’s night and step out of my car. They say eyes are the windows to your soul. Well, the devil himself has long since seized mine, and I don’t need anyone trying to get a read me .

“Oh, look out. They called the big guns ,” Sierra says around a toothpick between his lips. We don’t know each other’s real names or lives outside of what we do. Our boss uses the Phonetic Alphabet for code names, and agents don’t speak outside of the mission. I smirk and turn toward the private jet waiting for us to board.

“Who’s the target?” I ask as I lock my car and walk to the aircraft. Sierra jogs and falls into step beside me, his shaggy, black hair tucked behind his ears.

“Does it matter? Death is death, and you and I, brother, are its deliverance.” He climbs the steps first, and I hesitate with one hand on the rail.

Images of Puppet at home in her bed flood my mind, and my knuckles whiten as I fight the urge to turn around and let Sierra handle this one himself.

This isn’t like me. Nothing has ever come between me and the job. No matter what the details might be. It’s the one thing that makes me feel alive and brings me happiness.

Except there’s a doe-eyed blonde that has taken residence in my mind and is monopolizing my focus. In all the years I’ve been contracted out, now is the first time a job has gotten to me. Am I growing soft?

No , I internally growl. She’s an assignment that I need to protect. That’s all—an asset I refuse to share.

“Lima! Let’s go!?” Sierra slaps his hand on the exterior of the plane, and I shake my head. I’ll know if anyone comes or goes from her place while I’m gone. I set up cameras to make sure my little pet is safe, of course. Sitting across from Sierra, I sip on my water while he has a glass of champagne. We’ll reach the longitude and latitude destination we were texted in two hours. Then we will get sent the target’s information and where we can find them.

If we need fancier attire to blend in, we’ll have a hotel room waiting for us with fresh clothes and identification or whomever we are portraying. Before this job, I worked solo. Now, when the target is a larger payday, we work as a team—as well as two people who have severe trust issues can. I’ve met my employer once during a simple proposition that was made in the shadows. All she had to do was say it was a six-figure for just one contract.

One death.

One bullet.

Once we’re in the air and I can’t leave the job, regardless of what I see, I pull my phone out and go to the app for my security footage. Adding a few more seconds of torture, I skim the ones throughout my home before clicking on the feed from Puppet’s. She’s in her bed, sleeping on her back. Her eyes are closed, and her lips are parted as she mumbles something.

I lift my glass of water and pause, the edge grazing my lips as I enhance the footage and zoom in. Her lips part wider, and there’s movement under the blanket at the apex of her thighs. I set my water down and pull my wireless headphones from my pocket, ensuring they’re connected before turning up the volume.

My dick is already growing before her soft moans play across the earpieces.

Sierra kicks the toe of my boot, and I glare at him through the sunglasses for interrupting me. “Got some good porn or something to have you so focused?” His brown eyes glint with mischief.

I grit my teeth. “Testing out a new security software,” I state evenly. Puppet’s moans grow louder, and I drop my eyes back down to the screen. She flings the quilt back, and I cough to cover the groan that nearly escapes me. Puppet is completely naked, and everything is on display just for me. She fists a vibrator between her thighs and runs it across her clit.

“The job is not making you enough money, so you’re what? Investing in security? You, of all people, should know there isn’t anything out there that can’t be hacked.”

If he doesn’t stop talking soon, I’m going to lose my shit . I’m not one to have friends, but Sierra is the closest thing I have. But right now, he’s getting on my last nerve.

“Which is why I’m the perfect person to design one,” I quip, but my voice is void of humor.

Her voice reaches a peaked cry, and I have to shift in the leather seat. My hand tightens around my phone, and I itch to wrap my hand around my dick, only to imagine it’s her sweet cunt instead.

But I won’t. Maybe I like the torture. But the longer I hold out, the more fucking incredible it’ll be when I finally have her on her knees, staring up at me and using those supple lips to swallow my cock down her throat.

Sierra snorts, but thank fuck he leans his seat back and closes his eyes.

I trace my lips with my index finger as she palms her breast and relaxes into her bed. She places the vibrator beside her and lifts a piece of paper from the drawer in her nightstand. The picture is too grainy for me to see what it is, but she puts it back before getting up and disappearing from the camera angle .

I switch to the one in her bathroom. She sits on the edge of the bathtub and checks the temperature of the water before placing the stopper and sinking into the filling tub. I should sleep. We have no idea what the parameters of this job will be, and once we land, rest will be the last thing on the priority list.

But I can’t risk missing these moments with Puppet, so I lean back and listen to her sing a song about heartbreak and wishing for death instead.

Little does she know, I’m the person death hates to see coming. And I’ll be the person she finds her retribution in, if only for a little while.