a normal rookie, I would have had to work up to a job like this. I’d have sat on a desk for years. When Malone recruited me as an informant, I said the only way I was in, was as an agent myself. It took a lot of finagling, but the big guys agreed. I went to Quantico and then got trained by some of the best UCAs in the business.
It felt good to finally tell someone about my FBI life.
VI: UCAs?
ME: Undercover agents.
VI: Okay, 007. You need to get over yourself already.
I chuckled.
VI: Get some sleep. I don’t want you to crash the boat when you take off tomorrow.
ME: I can drive it with my eyes closed just fine.
VI: Well, that’s what you’ll be doing if you don’t rest.
ME: Promise me you’ll call me if anything happens.
VI: I’ll call Nolan first because he’s here and can rescue us.
Damn, did that hit me in the gut. I’d pay money that she’d done it on purpose, with a smile on that beautiful face.
ME: Just promise you won’t thank him with a kiss, and I’ll try to be okay with it.
I truly was tired if I was talking kissing with her.
VI: I don’t know. He’s staying in The Lord Byron room. You know it’s the sexiest room in the house.
My body went tight.
ME: I’m calling you Viola the Cruel instead of Viola the Jewel from now on.
VI: Why? Would you really care if I snuck into his room tonight?
I growled even though she couldn’t hear it. I hit dial. She picked up with a breathless, “Hello.”
“You toss a science geek to go for a techy? What’s an aquatic guy like me got to do to get your attention?” I was flirting, carelessly and uninhibitedly flirting with Violet Banner.
“Do you want my attention?” she teased back.
“Yes,” I said, my voice deep and dark, claiming her with a simple word. The thought of her going into Mori-sama’s house today and possibly getting hurt had made one thing painfully clear to me: I wasn’t ready to let Violet walk back out of my life.
She dragged in a breath and then was silent for so long I thought I’d said the wrong thing.
I breathed out an apology, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t―”
“I don’t know if I want to yell at you or cheer.”
“I’m not sure I’m following you,” I replied cautiously.
“Do you know how long I’ve waited for you to say that?” she asked.
“About as long as I’ve wanted to say it,” I replied.
“Which is how long?”
“You know how long,” I sighed. I was tired and an ocean away from her. This wasn’t the time to have this conversation. I’d stupidly started it when I couldn’t finish it the way I wanted—with her in my arms and my lips on hers. “I shouldn’t have started this tonight.”
“Don’t you dare do that. Don’t you dare take it away,” she said, her voice full of everything I was feeling, an aching desire ready to burst through our skin from years of holding it back.
“I’m not taking―”
“I cried after I had sex for the first time. Do you know why?”
Her words made every part of me protest. The thought of Violet’s beautiful, lithe body, naked and smooth, tucked into someone else’s arms, was enough to make me lose my mind.
“Vi.” It was a guttural growl mixed with a warning.
“I didn’t have sex with him because I loved him. I didn’t do it because I’d gotten so carried away with passion that I’d lost my senses. No, I did it with a calculated purpose. I did it so I would know what to do. So I wouldn’t be a teenage girl with a crush, but a woman who knew what a man wanted.”
I felt like the fabric of my soul was tearing at her words. At the pain behind them. Because of me. I’d never once led her on. Never once let her think there would ever be anything between us, and yet, just like me, she’d felt it in the very core of her being. We were an us. It was that simple.
“Did you really think―” I started, but she kept going. She talked over me as if I hadn’t spoken, as if she had to say the words or else they’d burn a hole inside her.
“It wouldn’t have been so horrible if it had been something I’d done subconsciously and realized later. But no, from the moment he touched me, you were on my mind. I lost my virginity