Catherine Needed Him Pt. 01

There was total silence on the line until she whispered, "I am going to kill you. That was such a terrible fake. I thought you were a new client until almost the end."

"You had better treat the new client right if you want a fancy dinner on the coast and an overnight."

More silence and a whispered, "I'll be at my apartment by one, new client!"

Afterwards, he realized the conversation might have been taped. Not legal unless announced, but he had begun to suspect a lot of behavior at Leggett and Myers was not announced.

Her duffel was by the door and she was in a businesslike tan raincoat. "There has to be an engagement agreement before we go anywhere."

She placed her arms around his neck and let the raincoat open. There was nothing but skin inside. Delicious, delectable pink skin.

He fell to his knees and nuzzled her belly, which shivered under his touch. "I was going to do this at dinner, but I can't pass up the opportunity. I feel a desperate need to get engaged to this fantastic warm, loving girl lawyer who has stolen my heart."

She collapsed, taking both of them to the floor. His hand on the bare skin pulled her close for a long, wet kiss.

"I'm supposed to make you wait, aren't I? Make some excuse about needing more time. Say that you have to meet my parents?"

His lips worried her breasts and he hummed softly.

"What if I said, lying with you on the stupid floor, that I have fallen madly in love and want you to be my husband?"

His tongue wandered around, tickling and making her giggle.

He said, "You have to pay attention to the new client's problem. We'll talk about the rest of this over dinner."

He was driving her convertible again. She sat across, the blond hair corralled in a baseball cap, with her very large, very dark glasses making her look mysterious.

She squeezed his hand and asked, "We are actually doing work?"

"Something Leggett told me to check last week. A water rights dispute that depends on the authenticity of old property maps."

Her fingers rubbed the back of his neck. "You are fun to be around, whether it is work or play. How was Sacramento?"

"You don't want to know. I think he only took me along in order to have a corroborating witness if a question comes up later. Wanted me to get all the names from the clip board they circulated. Of course, the ones who didn't want to be noticed simply didn't sign. Although I have a bunch of photos. Pretended I was just snapping witnesses."

"Do you mind if I ask a personal question?"

"Shoot." He glanced over and saw a serious look.

"You have been here a lot longer than I have, but these partners act like they have more on their minds than representing clients."

He smiled, "We are both junior and we are worried?"

She poked at his ribs. "Am I just being silly?"

"I think not, but let's save it for later. Are you prepared to spend the night with a guy at his secret cabin in the redwoods?"

Her fingers were playing around again, making him hard. "Depends on what the after dinner entertainment is."

It took almost an hour, with Catherine navigating from her smartphone, to reach a locked gate on a narrow track off the main road. The hillside slanted west, toward the ocean, and was populated with oaks, madrone and second growth redwoods. Accompanied by generous amounts of poison oak, which kept them on the brush lined track as they walked along.

He said, "You can see why there is no recent land survey in here. You'd almost need a hazmat suit to cope with the poison oak. The guy who bought forty acres alleges that the original map filed with the county was deliberately falsified to put the creek on the wrong side of the property line."

Catherine looked around and said, "I suppose a reliable survey corner is a long ways away?"

"Yes. Normally the county doesn't get in the middle of these fights. But the stream is the only one in the area that runs year round and so there are potential water rights issues above and below as well. I am going to take some pictures and we can go."

As they returned to the car, Catherine said, "There seem to be quite a number of vehicles that have been in here, for a property with no structures."

He smiled and put his arm around her. "Another little piece of evidence about our employer? Your boss Myers has something going over here?"

She said, "Take a shot looking up the road. The crushed plants will show up."

They went to the famous funky restaurant in Pescadero, where they sat at the bar amid a lot of rowdy customers and tourists. She kept her shoulder against his and he liked that, wondering about his strange behavior in her hallway. Maybe he was in over his head, in more ways than one. Did she have the same motivation he did, to be suspicious about their employer?

He laughed, and she asked, "Do I get to know?"

He whispered in her ear, against the noise in the barroom, "That was pretty silly, what I did in your hallway, wasn't it?"

She reached for his ears and locked them into a fierce kiss. Someone said "Whoa!" and the room quieted, before breaking into cheers. She knelt on the stool and announced, "He finally proposed to me today!"

The sight of Catherine, blond hair flying, and amazing rear encased in short shorts, unnerved the nearly all male audience. "Hear, hear. A toast, a toast!"

Chris, realizing his fate was sealed, accepted a glass of champagne from the bartender and shouted, "A round on me. To the finest woman in the land!"

An hour later, they sat in the car, not fit to drive, smiling at each other. She said, "Yes, that was very silly, what you did in my hallway. Almost as silly as my saying I loved you and wanted to marry."

He said, "I will drive carefully down by the water and we will walk this off."

Arm in arm, their bare feet dawdled along the edge of the surf, neither mentioning what was on their minds.

Finally, she said, "I outed you in a public bar. I suppose I am in serious trouble."

"Yes, about as much trouble as a girl from the Eastern Shore with a Columbia law degree can get into."

She stopped them for a kiss. He said, "I'll bet you are scared to call your mom."

"Chris! I rent you for a weekend and fall madly in love. Now it is not even the next weekend and we are engaged! I can hear her telling me to fly home at once for a family meeting."

He added, "Yes, she will want to know where I went to school, what my parents do, how many brothers and sisters I have..."

"Oh god, I don't even know those things."

Kicking his shins, she said, "Take me to this cabin, so I can knock some sense into you."

She made them stop at a small market for supplies, saying she was not going to starve in a bachelor pad and btw what happened to the fancy dinner. Then promptly fell asleep as the car wound its way carefully south and east.

Little voices were gnawing at him, but a glance at the body in the passenger seat confirmed that a special package had come into his possession. He wasn't giving her up.

Chapter 3

It was almost dark when they arrived, down a narrow road and through two gates. He told her to give him a minute to start the generator so the lights would work.

"I only run it when we are active. There are other lights that run off a set of batteries. Heat and cooking are with wood. Lucky for you, there is enough water pressure for a flush toilet."

"You bring your girlfriends here to commune with nature?"

"It belongs to my cousin. He is happy to have me use it in return for chores."

"No phone and no Internet?"

"Actually, there is satellite Internet so I can work up here now and then."

He went to work on fires in the living room stove and the kitchen stove, while she dug out her fleece bottom and top to deal with the chill.

There was an electric teapot and soon he was handing her a toddy with a light dose of rum. She stood next to the woodstove and said, "This really is a fine place to bring a woman. How many have there been before me?"

"Curious cat, are you? Your only predecessor is my aunt. I probably shouldn't tell you that. Promise you won't lord it over me that you are the only woman I've been serious enough about to bring here."

"Come and hug me and tell me you meant it. The part about getting engaged."

She was still cold and shivered in his arms. He said, softly, "I do love you, I'm just trying to give you some space to decide if you really want us to be together."

She shook in his grasp. "Stop thinking about those statistics on broken engagements and failed marriages. I like being paired up with you. I like it a lot. Is that ok for now?"

She worked on dinner, with sips of the toddy, while he fired up the computer and its satellite connection. She heard a couple of muffled exclamations. His face was serious when he returned to the kitchen and lay two pieces of paper on the counter.

"This came for you. The second is for me." His arm was around her, pressing them together as she read. It looked like a rap sheet, and was, in a curious way. "Background information on Catherine Ann O'Malley." At the bottom, it said, "Entered federal service July, 2012."

He felt her freeze, and then relax as she read his. Which started with Christopher Michael O'Connell and said, at the bottom, "Entered federal service, July, 2005."

"My god, you were just out of high school."

"My father's doing. He wanted me along on a mission in Eastern Europe. If we got in trouble, the feds would fly both of us home."

They worked together on the meal and took it to the living room, close to the stove.

She had his hand and didn't let go. "What are we both doing at Leggett and Myers?"

"I have a guess. I'm currently FBI, so that logically makes you DEA. They have a fanatical desire to keep the FBI from getting credit for drug indictments."

He went on, "How did they recruit you?"

She smiled, "My father's doing. He has worked at Justice in several administrations. Not right now, but they noticed me and asked him for help."

"Noticed straight A's, editor of law review and stroke on the women's crew?"

"Doesn't seem much against ten missions in Seals and a DSM."

He gathered the plates and made quick work of washing with hot water from the stove.

She was standing by the leather sofa with a blanket in hand. "You are required to get on the cold leather so I can lie on you."

They spent some minutes wiggling together, kissing lightly, preoccupied with their thoughts. It slowly got warmer with two bodies under the blanket.

He chuckled, "You are going to tell me there is no sex until it is a lot warmer."

She felt beneath her and found him nice and hard. "We could go for a run in the dark to warm up. Check your night vision."

"You'd make a good Seal, but they would never take you with this back."

"The Athletic Department almost didn't let me row. Got my doctor to tell them to take a chance."

"You have some kind of miracle body."

"The part you like isn't in my back."

"One of us is going to have to quit. I can't act well enough to pretend we aren't paired up."

"I was a thespian. I could hit on one of the other guys..."

"You are going over my knee with that talk."

She was silent and not moving. He thought she was using sleep to escape.

"What if, just for now, we get them to let us work together on a project? What if I ask to help on that lot problem, saying I'd like to get up to speed on water law?"

"I have to keep my hands off and my eyes above the chest?"

Her head was down on his shoulder, the pesky tongue licking his ear. "I'm almost warm enough. My girl parts are laughing about your having to keep hands off."

"Maybe it won't work."

"So we both quit, resign from the agencies, and disappear into the woods? I don't think so."

Her eyes were dancing in the dim light and his hand was working the fleece down. "I suppose a bed would freeze us solid?"

His fingers were doing very bad things between her legs. "Stop that. I'm going to have to remember that talking about dangerous work with you makes me horny."

He settled for digging strong fingers into the taut muscles of her behind. She made happy noises.

"I think we could make a good team. What about training up here in the trees. Black suits, night glasses, sharp knives, silencers, the whole works."

"You have been reading spy novels. The training is worse than the missions."

"Be serious for a minute. These guys, if they are doing what the agencies suspect, have some very nasty friends. The ones who pop you first, or tie you to a post for torture. I may be a tough woman, but I'm not getting close without someone like you with me."

He stilled his hands and said, "Do you suppose we are in a small doublecross? Our minders have been talking and waiting to see if we are smart enough to find each other and work together?"

"Keep doing that, it helps me think."

"The number of minutes until I am in you is shrinking."

"You are going to have me, my pants are all wet. But let's finish this thread first. Do you just send a note from the machine, saying we are linked up? What about something devious from us? Make them earn their salaries."

"Tell me more about devious." His hands were removing clothes more rapidly. It was a race between his cock and her devious thought.

She sighed, forced him into a very wet and very tight cunt, and said, "Fuck!"

"Was that a verb or a noun?"

She pulled his ears and kissed him. "Both. You are a good fuck, and you fuck good."

She thought that wiggling on his warm body was almost as nice as the cock exploring her insides. "Hmm. Don't be in a hurry. Did you have an older woman to train you not to come too fast?"

He thought she was talking too much and thrust harder. She clenched him and he chose that moment to flip them over.

His hard as steel shaft pinned her to the leather cushion. "God yes! More please."

They were wild with excited desire, the tough bodies banging on each other and climaxing with shouts.

He had her back on top, full of him and catching her breath. "You are a wildcat. What was that no sex for two nights about?"

She laughed gaily, "You expect your lovers to be consistent? To know what they want? Foolish man. Consistency is the province of small minds!"

He waited in silence, enjoying the close, alive body in his arms. "I'm supposed to train with you in the dark? With weapons?"

He carried her, still plugged by him, to the bathroom. She slowly drained, trying to lick his limp implement clean. He tangled his fingers in her hair, quietly saying, "I'm not sure how good two agents hopelessly in love are."

She sat there, dripping, and wondering when he would find out her secrets. "Take me back to the sofa, it's the only warm place."

They were going to talk, she thought, but the stove and his warm body and the tingle in her sex sent her to sleep in a few moments.

The sun was up and he was whispering in her ear, "It's a workday. Up and out. We can't just goof off here in the woods."

"I want you."

"Ridiculous. We can't behave like a couple of lovesick teenagers." He carefully raised her thigh enough to slide his stiff tool where it wanted to go.

"I thought FBI agents knew how to fuck."

His teeth took hold of a chunk of shoulder muscle as his thumb and forefinger applied strong pressure to her left nipple.

"Yes. Better."

He realized she meant what she said, and got to work. Her legs over his shoulders provided a better target for his anxious cock, and her moans climbed a ladder to a major scream as she came. His load of male juice filled her and then some, making a mess on the sofa. She wouldn't let him up, calling him names and kissing repeatedly. She lay there in the early light, her smooth flesh making him hard all over again.

"We were supposed to talk."

"I've never had a girlfriend who wants to talk but falls asleep every time."

"I've never had a boyfriend who loved me and cuddled me like you do. A girl can't help but fall asleep in your arms." She squeezed and pushed him off.

The coffee was extra strong. He dropped his towel and pulled hers off for a close embrace. "What if we called for a sick day?"

He fixed two bowls of cereal and berries and drowned them in half and half. After several bites, he said, "We will call separately and say we have a lot of case notes to pull together and will be using our computers at home."

"What if I demand sex all day tomorrow as well?"

He pulled her into his lap and nuzzled at her ear. "This is pretty crazy. If the agencies knew about us, we would be cashiered instantly."

"Why don't I care? I thought I was a talented, upwardly mobile lawyer until I fell in with you."

He picked her up and went back to the sofa. "This is not fluff. This is both of us releasing something that has been bottled up."

She said, knowing she was about to unleash a big problem, "Undercover agents don't tell the truth. What are we going to do about that?"

"Let's see. We could take turns torturing each other. We could use our secret ampules of truth serum. We could use whips until there is blood everywhere and the screams die out."

"Or, we could fess up?"

She straddled him, burying her head in his shoulder. He wasn't hard anymore, and she was limp against his chest.

A minor moment of truth was upon them. The silence got very long. So long that her anxiety gave way to a little nap, nestled there in his arms.

He thought to himself that the darn woman was asleep again. This was either a pinnacle of deviousness, or just a worn out female that liked his warmth and comforting arms. He asked himself if he could afford to be comforting to another agent who might have an agenda of her own. Would it hurt if he ignored the problem and closed his eyes? He decided not, and pulled up the blanket.

She woke him with a whisper, "I'm ready to fess."

God, she felt good. His lips were quickly on hers and she responded, flexing against him. "How could I fall asleep on you again? There must be a hex or something."

"We will break all sorts of regulations if we share everything."

"I've given you my body, you might as well have the rest."

"We may end up on the beach somewhere, living on coconuts."

"Agents who break the rules have been known to disappear."

"They wouldn't dare. Your father would tear DC apart."

"He doesn't know about the CIA."

"No wonder you fall asleep on me, trying to keep all your secrets straight."

"Everything in my background and my fancy education says this can't be happening. Even worse, how could I possibly run into a guy with military special ops experience?"

He sat up. "Are you carrying one of those special phones?"

"Yes, if it stops transmitting for more than six hours, bells go off."

He put her in a tight armlock and let his lips and tongue loose on the side of her head.

"We better go for a run and sort a few things out."

He led for a half mile, pushing to clear his thoughts. She stayed with him, loving the trail covered with redwood duff.

"How does the CIA get to have you doing something domestic?"

"I was discouraged from exploring that question. They said there were provisions in the Patriot Act that allowed my kind of work when terrorism was involved."

"I'm the first FBI guy you have run into?"

"Yes. There are days when they don't like the CIA any better than DEA, aren't there?"

"Damn right." He pulled up next to a large redwood and pressed her against the trunk.

"This is a hell of a mess. Three federal agencies on one side, a bunch of bent lawyers with drugs and terrorist connections on the other, and the two of us in the middle."

She whispered, "Could be fun, if we don't get ourselves killed."

"I'm going to write in my log for today, 'Agent Jones remarked that the mission could be fun if she and agent Collins don't get killed.' "