3 months ago (4 months into the Cale mission)
Cale beeped Max every day after their first two encounters. She hadn't realized how needy the cyber journalist turned cyberterrorist would become after being intimate with her, especially considering how awkward those nights were for Max mentally, trying to figure out the timing of her crafted moans and fake orgasms. A man like Cale had to feel throughout his body that he was a sexual god. He had to feel like he always, graciously, gave the woman her pleasure before accepting his. Thank the Blue Lady for Kegels.
She guessed that meant she was successfully creating some kind of codependency, if he was contacting her for both his business and physical needs. She didn't have to like it, she just had to make sure he thought she did. If asked, he better damn well say he loved it.
Manticore's orders were to make sure she tired him out enough to make him want to sleep. And once he was spent, lying in his plush bed with some-godly-number-thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets, she could hack his informant net and copy pertinent files to a thumb drive to pass off to Zack the next day at one of thirteen drops around the city.
He'd asked her to a ball, once, and promised her a night of beauty and romance. Though she thought it might have been a romantic gesture at first, and she had enlisted the help of Original Cindy to find the right dress to wear to it, turned out the prick just wanted to use her skills to break into the offices upstairs from the event. He dressed in the tuxedo and schmoozed with all the boring walking dicks downstairs while she shimmied up the drainpipe in her cat burglar suit – the basic antithesis of an evening gown – stealthily slipping into the personal office and then personal wall safe of Mr. Jedidiah Harrison, whom Cale had discovered had been involved in human trafficking.
She'd heard the guard outside of the office and his heavy, weighted steps as he approached the office. There was no place for her to hide – there were no closets, no separate rooms, and no bookcases or curtains. Nothing for her to climb on top of and wait, and Harrison's desk was made of glass – she couldn't hide under it. She had to think fast.
The guard, a forty-something man with a receding hairline and coffee stains on his teeth opened the office and nearly dropped his caramel macchiato when he discovered Max, sitting atop Harrison's desk, completely nude, both hands posted behind her propping her up, one leg bent and the other straight out, creating a seductive, sultry pose. He'd flushed immediately, and as Max played the embarrassment card, covering her breasts and crossing her legs, she concocted a quick story about how she had been expecting Mr. Harrison, and wasn't she so naïve to think he loved her, when all he really wanted was to use this body. The whole time she spoke, the guard did the gentlemanly thing and turned to allow her to get dressed, and she was able to get her pants and bra on before hurrying from the room with her shirt and shoes in a jumble against her chest, the evidence safely contained somewhere in that mess.
She'd effectively stolen the evidence Cale would later use for his hack, and when she copied the information and handed it off to Zack, they'd both been informed by Lydecker that Harrison had been framed. He was a high profile target due to his influence in the genetics game, which meant Cale had probably lied to Max, since Zack's team had found evidence of the falsified evidence with Cale's signature all over it.
But sadly, she'd found out about the false information too late. Eyes Only had already done the hack, and Harrison had been found murdered by a rival human trafficker. It was fucked up, and she could do nothing to right the situation.
Upon hearing the news that Harrison had been murdered, Cale had been ecstatic, and felt like celebrating the apparent success of his mission with the pasta and wine combination he'd quickly establish as a precursor to his sexual reward – a night with Max. After he'd played the news clip, showing the caution tape of the scene, he'd taken her by the hand and thanked her for her work at the ball, and pulled her into his bedroom.
The candles had already been lit, the bedspread had been turned down, and with a quick press of a button, the sexy jazz music wafted into the room via whole house speakers. One look down to his crotch revealed his protruding erection.
Seriously? He's hard because of this?
Max pasted a sultry smile on her face and prayed to the powers that be for this to be quick.
Cale had pulled her to him, ghosting his hand over hers over his heart, and began swaying side to side in a slow dance.
She toyed with the idea of dirty talk to hurry this thing along, but she didn't want to risk mission failure by tearing off their clothes and getting too aggressive. Patience had to be the name of this game. Dammit. She'd settled for, "I can't wait to have you inside of me," which she could see had sent a lightning bolt of pleasure through his body.
While he had eventually divested them both of their clothes and spent for-fucking-ever on foreplay, Max retreated to a place in her mind filled with the rough need of Pete's hands, his fingertips, his searching tongue and pulsing cock. If Cale couldn't bring her the wetness she needed in order to obtain mission parameters, she'd have to find a way to create it herself.
When Cale's fingers finally found their way down to her slick slit, Max reached for the nightstand drawer which held the condoms and paced the remaining four minutes until his climax.
When he was done, sweaty and sated, he excused himself to the bathroom and Max pulled her clothes back on. She hadn't stayed the night yet, nor would she have felt comfortable staying the night this night. She schooled her features and readied herself for the inevitable conversation ahead, where he asked if she would stay the night, and she politely declined. At least in the beginning, she needed to have him wanting more.
As soon as she knew he'd fallen asleep, she returned to the penthouse, quietly hacked his informant net, copied the files to the drive, and slipped out silently.
Just outside of Jam Pony, she met up with Zack.
Did you get it? he'd asked, just like he had every other time she'd obtained new evidence.
Of course, she'd replied.
Zack noted her aggressive tone, her general frustrated nature. If he thought she hadn't been sexually satisfied, he had never asked. Come to think of it, he had never asked how she felt at all. Dick.