Dirty Deals: Olesia Anderson Thriller #1 Free Epub Edition (2 page)

"Yeah, all the relevant details. You have a meeting with the head of Lockheed security in fifteen minutes, lucky girl."

She punched Jean in the upper-arm - it was as high as she could reach. "You got a ride?"

He did: a classic black Z-28 Camaro, restored and polished to a fine shine. The interior was soft leather and the motor growled like a cougar protecting her cubs as they shot down the highway towards Bethesda. Olesia wound the window down and let the wind blow her hair around her shoulders as they passed farmsteads filled with neat rows of corn and brown horses with solemn eyes staring from behind barbed wire.

It was all a bit too Twin Peaks for her liking. "What's a guy like you doing in a quiet town like this?"

"What?"

She shouted over the grumble of the engine. "Why the hell do you live here?"

"Because they pay!" He shoved the car into fifth. "Also, maybe I got tired of being shot at, and stabbed, and blown up, and kicked in the head, and-"

Olesia winced. She'd accompanied Jean on one of his last jobs, smuggling a French engineer across the Pakistan border to collect the remains of a proprietary drone. An IED hidden in the hulk of a burned-out truck blew his eardrums and turned his left arm into a flesh sock full of bony marbles. The engineer was turned to mist. She'd dragged Jean out from the ash-storm and carried him two miles back to town while he mumbled and spat blood over her shoulder. In retrospect, she didn't know how she'd managed it. That was a full year before their holiday in DC. Three years back, and she could still remember the ringing in her ears, the way her hands and feet felt distant...

Jean rested one broad hand on her knee, squeezing lightly. "No time for staring at clouds. We're here."

They pulled into the Lockheed complex, passing through three separate security gates before finally slipping through a maze of barbed wire into a wide, grey parking lot. The Lockheed building was a seven-story monochrome concrete slab striped with glass, the Stars-and-Stripes fluttering from the peaks. The wide swathe of grass and greenery around the perimeter did nothing to disguise the hard lines of the loam.

Olesia shivered. "Not the friendliest of places."

"Making friends isn't their job." Jean proffered his arm as they walked across the lot to the double-glass front doors. The guards inside eyed Olesia as they passed through, and she noted the pistols on their hips: big bore, large calibre, certainly larger than she'd have expected for internal security. "You want me to come up with you?"

"I'm just getting a brief, not interrogating the man."

He shrugged. "Suit yourself. Mister Orion, on the fifth floor. Enjoy!"

The receptionist waved her through and she took the elevator up. Her handbag felt unusually light against her hip, emptied of the SP-01 and her lock-drill kit. Without it, she felt curiously naked. It'd been months since her last face-to-face with anyone of importance; the last time she'd talked to a Blackrock taskmaster was when she'd been called to explain the Ardentech explosion. Just remembering that meeting made her wince.

The elevator stopped. She followed the signs down a narrow hall to a sign that read,
Michael Orion, Head of Security
. She straightened her skirt, squared her shoulders, and knocked twice.

"Come in."

Olesia pushed through into Orion's office, and was instantly blinded by the light coming in through the floor-to-ceiling windows. Orion was silhouetted by the glare. A short man in a sharp charcoal suit, dwarfed by the enormity of his oak desk. When she squinted she could tell that he was frowning. Orion waved at one of two plush leather seats. "Sit, Miss..."

"The contractor." Olesia sat, trying not to show how much the light stung her eyes. The room was lined with bookshelves, and the shelves lined with basketball trophies, medallions with blue ribbons hung around the necks of expressionless mannequin busts.

"I was hoping for a name to go with such a pretty face."

She didn't smile. "The contractor is the best you're getting, Mister Orion. Let's do business. You have a problem that needs taking care of?"

Orion coughed. Now that her vision was clearing, Olesia could just make out his broad, hairy knuckles, and the black curls of what was unmistakeably a toupee. "We noticed several intrusions into our networks about a fortnight ago," he began. "We watched carefully, and were able to observe a large tarball of data being stolen-"

"Yeah, yeah, you traced it back to one of your engineers. I know that much. Where is he, who is he, and what do you want done?"

Orion eyes her sourly. "Steven Young, thirty-three years old, and very well paid. Much too well paid to be pulling this sort of trick. Here are his details." He pushed an SD card across the desk. "His photo, address, house plan, local passwords, everything. Don't let that data get around, young lady."

"We're professionals, Mister Orion." She tucked the card away. "So, you want me to poke him until he tells me who he was planning to sell to."

"Exactly."

"And the information?"

"Destroy all copies."

"Naturally. But, I have to ask... what was this tarball?"

Orion scowled. "Is it necessary?"

"If you want me to pressure him without sounding like an idiot, yes."

Orion stood, hands clasped behind his back, and turned to look out the window onto the wide sweep of the grassy forecourt. "Schematics and code-"

"For what?"

He sighed. "A proprietary missile defence shield. We've spent eleven years developing it and what Young stole is more than enough to give a competitor a leg-up. It's worth a lot to us, and we don't want to lose this tender, let alone the investment. We especially don't want to see it taken overseas and appropriated." He ducked his head. "I currently have two security personnel watching his house. We'd like this wrapped up by tomorrow evening. Silently. If word gets out to shareholders, or, god forbid, the DoD..."

"We'll be discreet."

"You'd better," Orion growled. "If you fuck this up-"

"Like I said. We're professionals." She reached across the desk to shake Orion's hand, but he didn't move. "We... we'll call you."

Olesia retreated into the corridor and made her way to the elevator, the SD card clasped so tight in her palm that it cut into the skin. It wasn't until she was back out in the parking lot that she began cursing. "Stupid asshole, thinks I can't interrogate a guy without telling the whole fucking neighbourhood... blew up half a city block, I could blow his office all the way to the fucking
moon
..."

Jean was waiting by the car. "Hey. You look pleased with yourself."

"The world is choked with assholes, Jean." She sagged into the passenger seat. "I'm tired of people treating me like a lackey."

"You are a lackey." He turned the key, and the Camaro purred. "We're all lackeys. You're just high enough up the ladder to see how far up it goes." They pulled out of the lot, and the security guards waved as they rejoined the highway. "This is why you can't do jobs forever. Not for Blackrock, not for anybody. Got to have an exit strategy."

"Please, Jean..." She rubbed her temples, trying to massage away an oncoming migraine. "I don't need a lecture. I really just want to get to my hotel, drink a beer and have a shower."

Jean was supposed to be watching the road, but she noticed how his gaze flicked down to her long, pale legs, crossed beneath her skirt. "You sure you want me to drop you at the hotel? I mean, I've stayed there, it's nice, but I've got a place out in the suburbs."

Slowly, delicately, she uncrossed her legs and stretched. Her smooth skin flashed in the sunlight. "Got a wife to go with that house?"

Jean raised one eyebrow. "Not my thing, Olly. You know that. Beer, on the other hand, is my thing. Got a great case of Belgian imports at my place, a few trappists..." He caught her stare. "What?"

"It's nothing." She tried to hide her smile. Once again, she remembered the days spent by the river in DC, the exorbitant room service bills and the bruises left on her thighs, the pattern of his fingers squeezed into her left wrist like a bracelet. "I just never saw you becoming a connoisseur."

"Yeah, well." He gripped the wheel tight with his big, calloused hands. "Some things are worth holding on to."

* * *

Thirty minutes later, those broad hands were wrapped around Olesia's waist as Jean lifted her up on to the dresser beside his bed. It creaked beneath her weight, and she tried to wriggle free but Jean had her pinned. He pressed her against the backing mirror and kissed her deeply, his lips hot against hers, and she gasped as she pulled away. "Couldn't wait, could you?"

"Olly, I've been missing you for two years now. You think I'm going to wait another minute?" His stubble scratched against her cheek as he kissed down her neck to the collar of her shirt. He popped the buttons open one after the other, and Olesia arched her back as he reached inside the cloth and ran his fingers down her spine. "You missed me too?"

She purred under her breath. "Don't call me Olly."

He laughed, a rumbling laugh that came from deep in his belly, and pulled her in until his chest pressed against the bare skin of her stomach. "You sure haven't changed."

"Shame I'm only here on business."

"Yeah. Shame." He squeezed her right knee, and then eased her legs apart. His fingers danced up the inside of her thigh. "Think you can take some time off?"

Olesia grinned. "This isn't very professional."

"Fuck professional." Jean dropped to his knees and kissed her left knee, then her right, before nibbling his way up the inside of her thigh. His lips were warm, tingling against her skin, and she laughed as she pushed him away. "Jean, come on! I told you-"

"You told me what?" He looked up at her with his big, dark eyes, and then bit the inside of her thigh. She gasped, and then blushed at her own reaction. "See?" he said. "You missed me."

"Maybe." She tried to look coy as Jean wriggled her skirt up over her hips and teased her underwear aside with his teeth. "I thought you were turning over a new leaf when you started being a supply-guy. Settle down, find a nice lady?"

"Nice ladies don't work for me. I like the ones with a bit of kick in them." He grinned up at her before running his tongue along the inside of her leg, stopping just short of her most private of places. It felt as if he'd just pressed a battery to her skin, sparks shooting in all directions. "There's something on your mind. Tell me."

"God, now?"

"Now."

She swallowed hard, trying to keep her thoughts straight. "There's a man - an engineer, for Lockheed - selling off some stolen schematics for..." She couldn't see what he was doing, but she could feel the pressure of his tongue. It sent strange tingles all the way down into her toes. "It just doesn't make sense. There's no reason for Blackrock to get called in just to broker a deal with a wannabe spy. He-" She gasped as his tongue darted in deep, a hot twitch that made her squeeze her legs together around Jean's head. He pulled back, red-faced. "Shit, Jean, I'm sorry. You okay?"

"Never better." Jean grinned and licked his lips. "More?"

"The dresser is hurting my butt, sorry." She hopped down, and was suddenly aware again of how tall Jean was, how her head barely reached his collarbone. Then again, that had always been the part of him she liked the most. How he'd been able to pick her up and toss her across the bed with one arm, grab both her wrists in one wide hand and pin her no matter how she wriggled or howled...

There was a heat building between her thighs, and one glance at Jean's pants let her know that he was on the edge as well. She pressed one palm against his crotch and felt him harden beneath the fabric. "Been holding this in for long?"

"Only a few years, Olly."

"Call me that again and I'll bite it off." She tugged his zipper down and reached inside, curling her fingers around his length. It throbbed in her grasp. "And don't get sweet with me. Years? You've probably got fifty girls on rotation."

"Honest, I don't! Sure, there's a few nice ladies around town, but they never stick."

"Not like me?"

"Not like you."

She grinned, tugging Jean's pants down from around his hips. His cock hung before her, thick and pale, just a bit longer than her palm from fingertip to wrist. Silky smooth from end to end, with a tuft of black hair curling around the base of his shaft.

It begged to be touched, to be licked. She opened her mouth wide and ran her tongue up the underside of Jean's shaft, all the way from the base to the head, taking in his musk. He tasted odd, almost peppery, and it made her head spin.

Jean groaned. Olesia said, "You like?"

"Fuck yeah, I like." Jean rested a hand on the back of her head. He wasn't pushing her down - just a gentle pressure that made it so easy to open wide and take him deep into her mouth. He grunted as she closed her lips around his shaft, and she reached up to run her fingers down Jean's stomach, letting her nails drag around his bellybutton. It was easy to fall into a rhythm, and she closed her eyes as she bobbed her head back and forth, tracing the lines of his hardness with the tip of her tongue.

Jean made a noise like he'd been punched in the gut. His cock twitched against the roof of Olesia's mouth, and she pulled back long enough to ask, "You want to come?"

"I can't stop," he gasped, and she enveloped him in the heat of her mouth, massaging, teasing. Jean grunted again. His hand twisted in her hair as his cock twitched, and suddenly she was swallowing, his load salty and sticky on the back of her tongue. His balls tightened in her hand. She risked a glance up; Jean's head was thrown back, eyes screwed shut with pleasure.

Then, finally, he was done. She swallowed again and kissed his length from top to bottom, relishing his taste. "Hey, boy. How're you feeling?"

Jean made a noise somewhere between a gasp and a whimper. "Good."

"You weren't lying. That was about two years of blowjobs, right there." She stood slowly, pins and needles flooding through her legs. The heat between her legs throbbed, and when she reached down she realised she was soaking wet. "Got another round in you?"