Chapter 5
Thankful he’d gotten a good night’s sleep after days of traveling, Jack soaped up under the steaming hot water. He’d slept like a dead dog, despite the chilly room. Which was why he had the water cranked as hot as possible. First item on the list today? Buy an electric blanket. It would be an expense worth its weight in gold.
Turning to face the water stream, he slicked off the soap from his eyes and mouth. He couldn’t smell the soap and just hoped it didn’t have a floral scent. Not very manly.
When a hand suddenly stroked up the side of his ribcage, he jumped and yelped. Slapping a palm to the tile wall, he prevented a sudden slip. Turning around in the tub, he faced a very naked, wet woman, who was laughing.
“What the bloody hell?”
She was already soaping up her arms and her tits jiggled as she slicked over them. Nice big handfuls, that. The nipples were red and so tight.
“Only got five minutes of hot water a day,” Saskia said. “You’re going to have to share, Angelo.”
“I don’t think so.” His hand instinctively moved down to protect his privates. “You’re… You’re naked.”
“Yeah? That’s generally how a person takes a shower, smart guy. Move over. You’re clean. Let me at the hot stuff while I still have a chance.”
“This is not right. You can’t climb in with a bloke and think it doesn’t matter.”
“Oh, come on, Jack. What is the problem? You’ve already fucked me.”
“Yeah, but you weren’t naked then.”
Her laughter did not alleviate the tense situation. “Think about that one for a second,” she said. “You didn’t even manage to get my clothes off you were so hot for me.”
“As you were for me.”
“Oh yeah.” She slapped a hand to his chest and curled in her nails.
The erotic dig sparked through Jack’s system, and his cock bobbed. He was not going to let her have this round. He couldn’t. He just… “Where’s the towel? Christ, don’t press up against me.”
“Why? Mm, you get a hard-on in the shower. Now that is impressive.”
With a curse, Jack gripped his erection to keep it from brushing any slick, sensual part of her body. He stepped out of the shower, away from the woman who now hummed a tune as she began to rinse under the water that, indeed, was growing cooler. He grabbed a towel and wrapped it around his waist, but it was short, and his hard-on poked through the gap.
“Christ on a piece of toast.”
She was good. He could admit to that defeat. Again.
Stomping out of the bathroom, dripping, he sucked in his breath as the chill air outside the steam-filled room worked to instantly deflate his boner. He left the bathroom door open and waved his hands toward it. Maybe some of the cold air would sweep in on her. She deserved the brisk slap to her senses. And those tits.
Shaking his head, he wandered into the bedroom, thinking a smart man would have not abandoned ship so quickly. He might have even gone round two with the bird who apparently seemed open to anything involving naked bodies. Or even only partially disrobed bodies.
Was it a game? Or something more?
He didn’t like to feel off-balance when working with others. And most especially with a woman whom he was attracted to. That woman had the ability to throw him off in spades.
He pulled on a clean shirt, then cursed because he hadn’t dried off yet and his wet skin soaked the shirt, making it impossible to tug up the sleeves beyond his biceps.
Dropping his arms, and sighing, all he could manage was a defeated, “Shite.”
* * * *
While her main goal had been to take advantage of the hot water, Saskia wouldn’t discount catching the man by surprise and setting him off kilter. The look on his face would serve her giggles for days. The instant his gaze had averted to her breasts, she’d noted his erection had sprung upright. Oh, how easy it was to control the male species with but a flash of tit.
She had cornered the bull and made him lower his mighty horns.
Something not quite so satisfying about that win. It felt…stolen. Huh.
As the water quickly cooled, she rinsed her hair and then stepped out just as it turned to fluid streams of ice.
There were no clean towels. The apartment hadn’t provided any more than two, and the other was sitting in the hamper waiting for the laundromat. But there was a foldable blow dryer tucked away on a shelf above the vanity. Flipping it on, she blasted the air up and down her body, drying off in the comfort of warm spurts of air.
Noticing Jack had left the bathroom door open, she didn’t close it. She wasn’t hung up about nudity and certainly she was not a woman to tease a man.
Not a man like Jack Angelo. She’d had a taste of him, and she was ready for the full course. Whenever he was willing to serve it. But she wouldn’t push him. Not too much, anyway. But it was a delicate balance, this sharing of the apartment, working together, and her being assigned to tail the man’s every move. Alliances would be tested, for certain.
Saskia knew exactly where her alliances stood, and she would not falter from them. She loved her job, and wanted to continue doing it as long as she was able.
Now, to learn just where Jack Angelo stood on the scale of trust and alliance.
Her cell phone rang, vibrating on the vanity. It was Clive. He relayed that he’d received the heavy-duty industrial drill he’d ordered specifically for this job but the shipper was holding on to it and asking for more than the agreed price. Clive wanted to bring Jack along as muscle. He was on his way to her apartment right now.
“I’ll send him down in five,” Saskia said and hung up. “Jack, darling!”
The man peeked into the steamy bathroom from out in the hallway. He’d put on the suit and tie. She was still naked, but her hair was now dry. He stepped back so as not to look directly at her. Cute.
“Ah, come on, Jack. You never seen a naked woman before?”
He curled around the corner, drawing his gaze up and down her length. With a shrug he offered a forced, “All the time.”
Oh, sweet man who was struggling with so much right now. Was it the Catholic in him? With his bloodline he had to be Catholic. All that delicious guilt that she could dip her fingers into and stir into a mess.
“That was Clive on the phone,” she said, as she fluffed her hair. Tilting a hip against the vanity, she thrust back a shoulder, which made her breasts jiggle. “He needs your tough guy skills. He’s stopping by to pick you up in five minutes. He drives a black BMW.”
“Fine. You going to get dressed today?”
She shrugged. “You like me naked?”
With a groan that made her wonder if he wasn’t sexually repressed, the man wandered off, but he called out, “I’m going to buy a blanket while I’m out. You need anything?”
“Bring back something to make for supper!”
Hey, if the man liked to cook, she wasn’t the woman to stand in his culinary way.
Now, how to get what she wanted from him—more sex, and preferably longer and slower this time—without compromising the job? Wasn’t as if sex was off the table. The only trouble was how it would mess with the man’s mind if he screwed her again. For the sake of the job, she needed him to be in top form.
Was Jack Angelo like an athlete who needed to abstain before the big event, or would stoking his fire serve him the focus and energy required to pull off the heist?
“I’ll have to dive in and take my chances,” she muttered as the man closed the door behind him and left her alone and suddenly shivering.
* * * *
Clive pulled the bimmer before a long stretch of sea-weathered and rusted warehouses that were filed in rows before the Baltic sea. This was not a main shipping port but rather an old and forgotten cove that rarely saw any sizable arrivals.
Clive hadn’t said much to Jack on the drive here, other than to ask how it was going with Sass. Fine by him. He wasn’t a chatty person. And besides, a man could determine more about another man from his silences. Clive was overconfident, but not stupid.
Jack was the first to ask, “Shipment gone bad?”
“The shipment arrived,” Clive confirmed. “But the receiver is holding tight to it until I cough up more than the pre-arranged price. That makes him an idiot.”
“You’ve worked with him before?”
“No, and I never will again. This should be an easy pickup. Go in, flash some muscle, walk out with the drill at the price we agreed on. But, like most idiots, they tend to push things beyond their control. You prepared to make the man stand by his word, Jack?”
“Always,” Jack offered calmly. It was what he did. Use muscle to show others the wrongness of their ways. It had worked on him, after all. His father had never missed a punch. He shrugged off his overcoat, then adjusted his tie. “Lead the way.”
“I like you, Jack. A man of few words, but your actions speak boldly. I’m glad I took Sass up on her recommendation for you.” The man opened the car and got out.
And Jack followed, but now he had that information pinging his thoughts. Saskia had recommended him? How did she know him? She didn’t. And as far as he knew, the ECU had been instrumental in insinuating him onto this crew. Were his previous suspicions true? That she’d been following him far longer than from Stockholm? Didn’t make sense. And his reputation for being a team player on bank heists could have only come from information years ago when he’d been out and working the streets.
He’d have to ask Saskia about that later.
For now, it was time to pull on the thug. Jack buttoned his suit coat and smoothed a palm down his yellow tie. It was frigging cold, but that just helped to keep the sweat from his brow. Right?
He needed a vacation. In Jamaica.
Clive paused at the door and turned to say over his shoulder, “Stay behind me until it’s necessary to move elsewhere.”
“Always.”
He wasn’t stupid. As the muscle, Jack kept his eyes on all the players while standing behind the key operator. He’d know when it was his turn to step in. Thanks to his twitchy nose for the suspicious.
They strode inside the blessedly warm building, and a narrow hallway filtered them toward a small room cluttered with ropes of all thicknesses coiled and hung on the walls. Sea-fishing equipment, Jack figured, as he took in an assortment of massive wood pulleys and rusted iron hooks. It looked like a collector’s messy stash, not an organized inventory of anything that might prove of use.
Clive stopped abruptly and Jack stopped three feet behind him, hands calmly hung at his sides, as he took in the scene. A small man, no taller than a fourth grader, stood behind a desk with his hands up. Wire-rimmed spectacles made his eyes look five sizes bigger than they were. And the reason for his quiet submission stood before the desk, holding a Beretta 8000 aimed at the small man.
“Busy man,” Clive commented.
The gunman quickly swung his arm toward Clive and Jack. His gaze darted. His mouth was stretched tensely. The pistol was a small bit of aluminum and gunpowder, but easy to conceal. “Who the hell are you two?”
Clive put up his hands in placation. Jack kept his hands down at his sides and his attention split between the gunman and the man behind the desk.
“We have an issue with Mr. Koskinen,” Clive offered. “Much like, I presume, you appear to have an issue?”
“He stole from me,” the gunman blurted out. He redirected his aim toward the short man, but then back at Clive and Jack. “Get out of here. This is my deal.”
“I had an appointment with this gentleman,” Koskinen said with a nod toward Clive. “You, I did not.”
The gunman pointed his pistol toward the ceiling and fired. Building debris sprinkled down to land on the desktop.
Clive turned to Jack. Jack got the message.
Stepping quickly, he swung around Clive and reached the gunman just as he swung the pistol toward him. Catching his wrist and pointing the gun downward, the man managed to get off another shot, even as Jack wrangled an arm about his neck. Squeezing his fingers about his wrist and compressing the bones, the gunman yelped and the weapon dropped to the floor. Jack’s firm bending of his fingers backward produced a satisfying snap.
Jack twisted the man around to face the wall of ropes and slammed him against a thick coil. His captive spun quickly, his agility surprising Jack, but he was prepared to block the fist that soared toward his face. Kneeing his opponent in the kidneys dropped him to his knees. Bending, Jack grabbed his arm and twisted it behind his back, slamming a foot to his shoulder to force him to lower his head to the floor. He moved his grip down to the broken hand and applied pressure. This time the yowl progressed to a pleading wail.
“Kill him!” the man behind the desk encouraged.
“Whatever issue the two of you have,” Jack said calmly, “I’ll leave for you to take care of. Clive?”
“Where’s the drill?” Clive asked.
“The price is twenty thousand euros,” the deskman had the audacity to say.
“We agreed to five, and I am a man of my word. Are you a man of your word?”
Jack crushed the toe of his shoe against the back of his captive’s head, while slowly and firmly pressing into the broken hand bone, forcing out a groan from the gunman. He gave his arm a tighter twist, just for good measure. “Sorry about that,” he said. “Needed to be done.”
“Isn’t he a gentleman?” Clive asked no one in particular. “Now hand over the drill or I’ll have my Gentleman Jack show you the error of your ways, Koskinen.”
“Where’s the cash?”
Clive tugged out an envelope from his pocket and tossed it on the desk. The short man eyed it for a few moments. He had nothing to counter that action. And if he were smart, he’d take the cash. Jack didn’t see any weapons, though he wouldn’t rule out a gun in a desk drawer or taped under the desk.
“Fine. It’s over there.” He gestured toward a wood crate on the floor beneath a coiled rope.
“Open it for him,” Jack said before Clive could make the mistake of looking in the box himself. He twisted his shoe against his prisoner’s neck. He should have blacked out by now. For a gangly bit he was hardy.
“Do as the gentleman asks,” Clive said.
With a hell of a lot of huffing and sighing, the short man opened the crate with a crowbar and showed Clive what was inside. It was a box for a large machine that would require two men to carry out. Jack did not like that scenario, especially with an idiot gunman waiting to get served what he felt was just. Whatever that was.
“It’s good.” Clive toed the box. “Doing business with you has not been a pleasure. But I’m going to guess you prefer it that way. Have your idiot help carry it out to the car.” Clive turned and strode down the hallway.
Really? That did not leave Jack in a good position. He wasn’t about to let this bastard move any more than he already had. Jack flipped the man over and delivered him an upper cut under the jaw. Knocked him out cold.
As he rose, he lunged to grab the abandoned gun. He ejected the magazine. Saw there were only three bullets, and emptied them into his palm. Calmly, he set the gun by the head of the unconscious man, and slipped the bullets into his pocket.
With a nod to Koskinen, Jack said, “Looks like you’re the idiot. Help me carry this thing out or I’ll pocket the cash myself.”
Shoving the envelope in his front pants pocket, the man then lifted one end of the crate, which did have a rope handle on it. Jack lifted the other and led the way down the hallway, listening carefully. Not a sound of any weapon being picked up. But he always stayed alert until the coast was clear. And the coast was never clear until he could not see the people or the place in view.
He was getting too fucking old for this racket. Bruising his fists across jaws, cheeks, skulls, into ribs, and right into the sensitive esophagus. He’d once gotten a rise out of the act of violence. It had simply been what he did. It was all he had ever known. He’d grown up in a violent family. Beating the shite out of one another was how they resolved conflicts and got taught lessons.
But he’d beaten all his anger out years ago. Honestly, he had nothing left he could summon that would personally offend him.
Now, the act of swinging his fists had become merely a job. One that was becoming harder and harder to be proud of. He could only justify beating on arseholes for so much longer before it all crumbled. His world. His life.
But what waited for him on the other side? Was there another side?
The chill air smacked him as he walked out, and he and Koskinen shoved the crate inside the backseat of the BMW. It just fit.
“And don’t come back!” Koskinen said with a flip of the bird to them before he scrambled back inside the building.
Keeping an eye on the building as they pulled away, Jack could only smirk as Clive congratulated him on a job well done.
Indeed. And yet, who had they marked as their enemies now?