CHAPTER 10—PICKING UP THE PIECES
Casey hadn't lied when he said her hotel room would be 'nice.' The room was a huge suite with enough computer equipment inside to make Cody salivate. However, with all its amenities, it was cold and lonely. It also killed her to know that Donovan and Rachel were no more than a mile from her and she could see neither of them. In the weirdest of ironies, Casey had deemed Loralei lead agent on this particular case, and there were a couple of other agents helping out. One of them was a rookie very much like herself back in the day. Here you are thinking of yourself as seasoned agent. How long were you in before you left? Her field supervisor was a fellow named Lee Fielder, and he had stationed himself in the suite adjoined to hers. At around nine a.m. of Loralei's third day back on the job, Agent Fielder received a phone call from the SO Division of the DOJ. He spent a good portion of the morning working through the information faxed to him from a fellow by the name of Frank Donovan. Of course, he couldn't believe his eyes. What was being said about Chance Casey was a bit hard to swallow. However, he swallowed it. He really didn't have a choice. He pecked on the adjoining door and asked Kadin if she were decent. When she proclaimed she was, he told her about their top-secret meeting that would be conducted at noon in his suite that was devoid of computers and surveillance equipment. She was to tell no one. When she questioned Fielder, he did not elaborate.
At noon, Loralei begged off her seemingly endless hacking job and gave charge of it to the rookie. "If Casey calls, tell him I'm at lunch," Loralei said. She pounded on Fielder's adjoining door and he called out for her to come in. When she entered the room, the other parties to the meeting had arrived. At first, she thought she was hallucinating again. Surely she hadn't heard what she thought she did. Couldn't be. Couldn't be in a million years. Before she barreled into the room, she peeked around the corner and gasped aloud. Donovan, and not just Donovan. It was his whole damn team. She felt two intense ways at once. She was livid, but she was also ecstatic. The mixed emotions swirling about her settled into her heart and head, and both began to ache simultaneously. How did he find out? How in the fuck did he know? She wanted to snatch him bald and fuck him until he couldn't walk. Goddamn him. He was a human bulldozer, and seemingly couldn't be stopped by any force known to man.
"Agent Kadin," Fielder called. "Are you there?"
She came out of her hiding place ever so slowly. She needed the time to get her shit together. If she didn't, she thought she just might strangle her husband and his agents. "I'm here," she said. The instant she came out into full view of the other people in the room, Donovan fixed an intense gaze on her. When she got him alone, she intended to chew him out from one end to the other. By the time she was through with him, he might walk out today with one less appendage on his body. She met his gaze and dared him with her eyes to smirk or raise his infernal eyebrow.
Without breaking his gaze, Donovan said, "Maybe you should call her Agent Donovan."
She had no idea what she was going to say until the words tumbled bitterly out of her mouth. "Maybe you should call an attorney," she said calmly. She wondered if he picked up on her forced bravado and the obvious bluff. He had; she could see it plainly in his eyes.
Fielder was a bit oblivious and a lot confused. Donovan had failed to mention that Loralei was his wife. How awkward. He knew she was married, but he had wrongly assumed that Kadin was her married name. The quartet of agents seated near Donovan had passed a look amongst them: did she really say that?
The field supervisor cleared his throat. "If we could, ah, get past this awkward moment, perhaps we can find out what's going on. Agent Ka-Do, uh, Loralei, if you'll take a seat, we can get started."
Loralei tore her eyes off her husband's face long enough to walk around to an empty seat. How convenient, she thought when she noticed that her chair faced Donovan's. He would see her face throughout the entire 'meeting.' She crossed her arms over her chest and waited for that bastard she loved more than life itself to speak. She was sure he wouldn't explain how he had found her, not until they were alone. Do I want to be alone with him? Do I even? Without changing her annoyed facial expression, she asked, "Would you like to explain your presence, Agent Donovan, or would you prefer to continue staring at me?"
How to begin? How to begin? "Your tenure with ICD a few years ago was the catalyst, so to speak, of my team's involvement, Agent Donovan," he said in a mocking voice that irritated the hell out of her. However, after those words left his mouth, he changed his tone and went into 'all-business' mode. "Your director has a bit of a shady past, and he lied about your status to bring you back." For all his hurt and anger, this news would be the hardest to break to her, and he felt himself shifting uncomfortably in his chair. He didn't enjoy hurting her, and this would definitely do the trick. "I hate to tell you this, but Agent Bart Jackson is dead. His body was found out in the woods by a young couple. He was shot numerous times in the chest. I'm almost certain your director was involved. I'll even go as far to say that he probably murdered him, and now he's set to murder you. He had a job in 1996 with the state of Illinois, but was fired due to downloading pornography to his work computer. He may be tied to some type of current or past Internet crime. You were asked to come back, and he's setting you up. If you need proof, Cody has it." His voice had softened quite a bit, he couldn't help it. The instant he told her Jackson had been murdered, her expression changed from extreme anger to devastating grief in a matter of seconds. He ached to reach across the table to take her into his arms.
If she had just met Frank Donovan, she would have believed that what he had just told her was the most ridiculous drivel she had ever heard. However, that wasn't the case. She had been closer to him than any other man in her life. Ninety-eight percent of the time, she could accurately identify every emotion, every thought running through his mind. She had touched his heart hundreds of times, and he had done the same to her. His words were nothing more than the basic facts, the simple truth. Her friend, her mentor, the man who had been her brother was dead. She wasn't prepared to deal with that harsh fact of life. It was the only thing she didn't want to believe. Of course, she knew that Donovan would never mislead her in such way no matter how protective he was of her. She was so angry with him that she could have easily broken his nose, but he had given her the crude reality of the situation. Even as much as he disliked the man, he knew that she loved him like a brother, and he would no more purposely hurt her than she would him. Suddenly, she didn't feel much like an agent at all. She was Donovan's wife, the mother of his child. Forgetting the other people in the room, she spat, "What are you doing here? Checking up on me?"
Her grief had overtaken her rationality. "No, not checking up on you. We're here to help, Loralei," Donovan said slowly, choosing his words carefully. Her anger had started to creep back into her voice. "We've been assigned to investigate Chance Casey, and to put an end to any plot he may have against you or any other agent assigned under him."
Loralei tore her eyes away and looked at Fielder. "Lee, do you mind if I take a break? I need to breathe, and I can't do it in here."
Without waiting for a yay or nay from her superior, she stood and fled the room. She went back into her suite and headed straight for the bathroom. She collapsed in front of the toilet as the bile rose into her throat. She dry heaved for thirty minutes or more, but her sickness was not relieved until the thought of Jackson's death slowly crept into her mind. After that, she and the toilet became very close friends. In the midst of her stomach's explosive pyrotechnics, she heard the adjoining door come open and then bang shut. She didn't have to look up to know it was Donovan. Before he could make it to the door of the bathroom, she swung it shut with a resounding bang. It wasn't that she didn't want to see him, didn't want him to comfort her, but she couldn't face him just yet. Regardless of how much she loved him or how long they'd been married, she didn't want to throw up in his presence. The one thing she hated above all else was to appear weak before her overprotective, duty-bound husband. Besides that, she didn't want to see the smug 'I told you so' look on his face. You know he wouldn't do that to you, not in this instance. Give your husband some credit. He had a ton of explaining to do outside what he already told her, but if she were to speak to him right now, she might projectile vomit all over him. Her stomach was tied in knots and it would take hours to loosen them.
Not one to give up easily, he pecked on the door with the knuckle of his forefinger. "You don't have to let me in, just tell me that you're all right," he said.
Her gag reflex was working overtime and it attacked her yet again. "I'm fine," she spat through clenched teeth. She banged the lid down on the toilet as her eyes narrowed to slits. She laid her cheek against the cool porcelain. She wanted to be left here for the rest of her life locked up in this swank room with real porcelain fixtures. Yet, this was real life, and real people dealt with their issues, they didn't hide from them. Regardless of her anger and grief, she had to deal with her husband, even if it meant screaming at him until she felt better. She brought herself up to her feet, her legs shaking the whole time, and walked over to the sink. She splashed her face with cold water until her skin grew numb. When she swung open the bathroom door, her stubborn caveman husband had yet to move away. As she blotted her face dry with a towel, she shoved past him and closed the bedroom door. He had made a stupid move coming into her room. He probably knew it, but didn't give a ripe fuck. If Casey were to hear his voice over surveillance, the game would end before it began.
Whirling around to face him, she noticed that he hadn't moved one step from his position in front of the bathroom door. He had only turned to face her. Taking a deep breath to avoid screaming at him, she spat, "What the fuck do you think you're doing? Can you not let me do this on my own? Can you not keep your nose out of something that has little to do with you or your team? How did you convince your superiors to let you come in on your big white horse to save the fucking day?"
Strangely enough, her acid laced words didn't bite his flesh at all. They simply rolled off him as a bullet might roll off Superman. She had been shocked and now, she wanted to sink her teeth into him, and he could accept that. Eventually, she would see it and understand. "I've never doubted your capability, Loralei. That was never a question at all. I'm sure that you would have drawn the same conclusions as I, but would you have had time to get out? Would you have had the ability to survive? It takes no more than five seconds to cease the beating of a person's heart. You would have walked right into his trap. Your mind is not in this, nor is your heart. I know this, Loralei, I know because I see you. I'm inside you. Do you understand? Sidetracked, one set of eyes can get you killed, but you have mine, and now you have four others. We're here to help, not to hinder. If you can't accept that, I can't help it. We're here, we're entrenched, get used to it."
"Goddamn it, Frank," she spat. "God…damn…you."
Her feet were planted firmly on the floor, her arms were crossed over her chest, and the towel she had used hung over one shoulder. Her face was drawn into a vicious pucker of disgust. However, it was almost the funniest thing he had ever seen. Her best comeback was 'goddamn you.' At least she hadn't called him 'MAN' or 'Boss.' The situation wasn't funny at all, and he knew he shouldn't have been as amused as he was. The laugh that escaped the depths of his throat was bitter and harsh. "Is that all you've got, Agent Donovan?"
"Bastard," she spat angrily. She opened the door. "Get out. I don't want you here."
He nodded sedately with every intention of honoring her request. Lately, he had honored lots of requests even when he totally disagreed with them. He walked toward the opened door. Before he went out, he stopped and took hold of the hand that grasped the doorknob ever so tightly. His touch was gentle, loving. "I'm genuinely sorry about Jackson. I wish it could be taken back." Without giving her the opportunity to speak, he slipped quietly out of the room and went back to Fielder's room.
When Loralei got herself under some type of control, she made her own return to Fielder's room so the group could set up some type of plan and a contingency follow up if their initial failed. Loralei would work mostly with Cody [much to her relief]. After having words with her husband earlier, the two of them hadn't spoken more than five words to each other for the rest of the day. Be that as it may, Loralei's hand almost burned where Donovan had touched it. She and Cody worked for a couple of hours so he could learn the set up. Of course, as she expected, it didn't take long.
"Grade school stuff," Cody said with a wink. Loralei had laughed in spite of herself. "You know, it's nice seeing you guys together, even if you aren't talking," he said.
Her laughs dried up quickly. She nodded. "Thanks."
* * *
Loralei chased Cody and the other agents out of her room by around nine that night. She had shutdown every machine, but left Supercomputer, Jr. running. Cody had helped her program the machine to continually break encrypted code until it found the script that would break into the taboo site. He had installed an alarm that would scream out "EUREKA" in his voice if it were found. He had also booby-trapped the machine where no one but she and Cody could access it. He was such an asset, and Loralei wondered why the CIA hadn't snatched him up. She had also chased the people away because she had a headache and needed to eat. She locked herself in her room and ordered a meal from room service. While ordering the food, she thought she was hungry enough to eat a horse. However, once it arrived, she couldn't touch it. Suddenly, the idea of eating seemed too big a feat to tackle. Somewhere in this hotel, her husband lurked. She wanted to see him, wanted to talk to him. The riff that had grown so out of control seemed to be getting larger by the second. She found herself wondering if the damage could be repaired. She wondered if she could slip away long enough to see her baby.
For the time being, Loralei shoved the food tray away. She would go in and take a bath. Bathing sometimes helped alleviate any stress that decided to attack her body. Of course, this hotel had super deluxe facilities, and the sunken tub was large enough to bathe a baby elephant. She also noticed that it had hot tub capabilities. Hot tub. That just might work, she thought. She turned on the water to begin the timely process of filling the large tub. Taking her time [it'll take half an hour to fill that monster], she stripped out of her clothes and twisted her hair up into a large clip. She found herself gazing down at her hand. She could still feel the brief touch of Donovan's hand. It would have been so easy to grab his hand, jerk him forward, and then kiss him until they were both breathless. She sighed. It's best not to think of that right now. She turned away from the bathroom mirror and glanced at the tub. It had filled up quicker than she expected. She climbed into it while it continued to fill and fingered the switch that would make the water bubble crazily. Once the water reached the depth she wanted, she turned it off and leaned back. The hot tub effect was exactly what she needed. The hot water was relaxing every tense muscle in her body, and before long, her eyes closed and she dozed. She was so relaxed that she didn't hear the card key sliding into the lock, nor did she hear the soft snick as the door opened, nor the soft click as it closed. Agent Loralei Kadin-Donovan was not alone.
He crept silently into the room. There were several computers scattered here and there, but only one of them was on. He glanced briefly at the screen before moving onward. He thought he heard the rush of bubbles coming from the back of the suite. There was a dim glow radiating from underneath a door. This must be the bathroom, he thought. He moved toward the door and reached out and grasped the doorknob. It turned easily in his hand. As quietly as possible, he opened the door and peered into the room. He saw her sitting in a large sunken tub with her head leaned back. She had to be napping, or she would have heard him by now, and she hadn't made one move. He cautiously crept toward the tub, his hard soled shoes clacking against the tile. Cursing under his breath, he slipped out of the shoes and pushed forward. When he laid eyes on her face, he noticed that she was, indeed, asleep. Good. She didn't hear me.
Loralei drew in a shocked breath that was more like a low scream as a hand fell on her naked shoulder. Forgetting her naked, vulnerable state, she whirled around and drew her body halfway up. Crouched before her with a slightly stunned look on his face was her husband. "What the hell do you think you're doing," she yelled. He didn't have time to say one word. She drew her hand back and slapped him hard before he could even form a sentence.
Donovan gawped at her, completely not expecting such a vicious reaction. Of course, he had snuck into her room like some crazed perverted Peeping Tom, and he deserved it. He was certain she would soon aim lower and indeed wind up making Rachel an only child. Loralei's arm came up and he tried to back away before she ended his ability to reproduce, but he didn't have time. Her fist indeed came up but instead of aiming toward his nether region, she took hold of his shirt and jerked him violently forward. Unable to find footing, he fell almost face first into the tub. What's she going to do? Drown me?
Before he sank under the hot water, she grabbed the back of his shirt and helped him up. At that juncture, she was almost straddling him. The look on his face was one of startled surprise and anger. The look on hers was much, much different. When he recognized the hungered want so very evident in her green eyes, he finally understood that she hadn't been trying to drown him at all. Still a little uncertain, he tentatively moved his face closer and closer toward hers, giving her the chance to back away if she chose. Instead of backing away, she took hold of his soaked shirt and jerked him forward again. Their lips collided with force, and before he knew what was happening, her tongue had demanded and was given access to the inside of his mouth. When he recovered from the overwhelming shock of the situation, his hand went up to the back of her head, nearly ripping the clip out, and tangled into her hair. She broke away for a moment, but he wasn't done. With his hand still tangled into her hair, he pulled her face forward and mashed his mouth onto hers, controlling the kiss on his own terms.
She finally managed to wrench her mouth off his as her hands went down to his shirt. Thank God it was a button down and not a sweater. At that point, she was certain she could probably rip him out of steel, but at least with a button down, she wouldn't have to work as hard. The interesting part would be getting him out of his pants. She didn't bother taking him out of the shirt, she was satisfied with ripping it open just enough to reveal his chest. By that time, his mouth had wondered down to her throat, nipping and biting, and she pressed her body as close against his as she could, her breasts nearly flattened against his chest. The feel of her hardened nipples against his skin after so long a time had an almost completely incapacitating effect, but he refused to be incapacitated right now. Maybe later, maybe after giving her fifteen or twenty orgasms.
She leaned her body upward as his wandering lips traveled lower. She gasped aloud as his lips captured each hardened nipple possessively. He raked his teeth against them, dancing his tongue around them, as if they were tangoing to an endless melody.* His own gasp escaped him as her hand settled between his thighs. Dear God. How long had it been? Hadn't he thought that many, many times before? Oh yeah, but it was never as intense as this, never had he needed her more. Her hand began a slow, but urgent caress and his pulse had already begun to boom at his temples. Getting him out of the soaked woolen slacks would be quite the feat, but Loralei was wily enough to figure out a way.
Loralei moaned in frustration at the slight dilemma before her, but she wasn't about to give up. Her hand stopped its maddening caress as her fingers moved up to the snap and zipper. She pulled it down slowly, causing Donovan to moan in protest, in need. She leaned back just a little and held onto the side of the tub for balance. He watched, fascinated, as she brought her knees up. Moments later, he felt her toes hooking into the waistband of his opened pants, dragging them down with the help from the water's momentum.** This is new, he thought. While her skillful toes [was this something she learned at the academy, he thought wonderingly] and feet worked the pants down his legs to his ankles, he began to help her out by working his legs toward her to help free them from their soaked prison.*** The only barrier left was his briefs, but they were hardly a barrier at all. A few quick tugs, and they were gone.
She wasted no time impaling herself on him. She drew him into her slowly, and he heard himself gasping/moaning again as he slid into the glorious warmth that gripped him as tightly as a long lost love. Uh uh. No. He couldn't go slowly, he couldn't take it, not unless she truly intended to kill him. His hands moved down to her waist and he dug his fingers into her flesh, hoping that he wasn't hurting her. She moaned a little herself, but it wasn't a pained sound. It was far, far from it. When he was all the way inside her, she began moving her body against his, slow at first, but quicker as he matched her thrusts. Her arms came up to rest directly over his shoulders and she fiercely gripped the tub behind him. She wanted to dig her nails into his shoulders, but was afraid she might draw blood. The motion of their bodies had caused the water to splash up all around them. As their lovemaking intensified, the hot water began slopping out of the tub, pouring onto the floor. They weren't inclined to notice. The water pouring out around them had loosened Loralei's grip behind him, and her hands slipped off the tile. For a moment, she felt the terrifying sensation of falling backward, but Donovan's hands grasped the small of her back, supporting her, and kept her connected to his body. The upward jerking motion brought her to a sharp, sudden release, and a silky scream left her, one that Donovan didn't dare want to quiet. She fell forward onto him and ended up digging her nails into his shoulder anyway. Her pace picked up as she began to work on helping him give way to his own release. Oh no. He was stubborn, he wanted to control it, to make it last as long as possible. As she seemingly grinded her body into his, his control began to slip bit by bit, and he managed to last a few minutes more. He met his release with one last thrust, arching his body upward, and holding it in place. Almost forever, he remained frozen in time. He closed his eyes tightly and held his breath as sweet, agonizing ecstasy was unleashed inside him. He began to wonder if he would ever breathe or move again. He recovered slowly, almost panting against her. Her lips were all over his face, kissing him, whispering his name over and over again. Despite his intense, exhausting climax, he found the strength to tighten his hold on her body. He didn't intend to let her go for the rest of the night, even if it meant sleeping in the tub.
* * *
*, **, and *** ---This is a shout out to TheDreamyOne for helping with these crucial little tidbits. What was it that you said about 'like' minds? Hahahaha. THANK YOU!