Page Ch. 07

"It smells wonderful," I whisper to his ear and give it a gentle nibble.

"It's ready, if you're hungry," he tells me.

"Maybe, I could have you first," I say standing flatfooted to allow my hands exploration down the front of his trousers.

"We should have some nourishment. I don't want you to pass out on me," he says turning to hug me tightly while caressing my back.

"Oh alright, but I will exact my fee soon," I say, releasing him.

While I turn to get bowls and spoons from his cabinets, Dave sets places at the kitchen bar with glasses and napkins. When I am about to sit, I see him reaching for a bottle from the wine rack above the bar and shake my head.

He asks, "You don't want wine?"

"Yes, I do, but I really need to leave around five."

"That's nearly two hours away," he says looking at his watch. "Nothing I can do to convince you to stay?" he continues with raised eyebrows and a cute smile.

"No, unfortunately, I have to go and I'll need my wits about me," I tell him.

I'm thinking that it's closer to an hour and a half when he relents and fills our glasses with water from the refrigerator. I pull up to the bar and dig in to the stew. It is warm, savory and is curing a hunger I hadn't realized I had. Dave is watching me eat and I feel the tension growing.

"It's delicious," I say between bites.

He smiles and shakes his head knowingly. I'm having that feeling that he can see right through me, but hope my explanations and compliments will suffice in misdirecting him. While we eat, he attempts to get where I'm going, but I play coy and turn the conversation back to where he's been in his fancy attire. We agree to call it a draw and end the meal with me telling him I'll put away things, while he changes out of his suit.

After making quick work of leftovers and dishes, I disrobe from my dress and leggings as I approach his room. He is completely undressed and picking out shorts when I sneak attack him and push him onto his bed. I have him in a dominant position and his smile and stiffening erection tell me he may have known this was coming beforehand.

Yesterday evening's romp seems to have dipped into a deep well of longing inside me. There is passion between us that is different from anything I've experienced. My wetness is so pronounced that his length slips inside without any further action on our parts. The suddenness of it surprises both of us and we each utter some version of "oh yeah". From my seated position, I proceed to gyrate him, creating sloppy wet sounds of our coupling. The noise fills my ears while my eyes close. Thoughts of exactly this have been on my mine throughout the day. His warm hands caress my breasts for a time and then I feel the wetness of his mouth on me.

The rasp of his tongue rubs over my stiffening nipple and I let out another lengthy sigh. It is as good as any time I've been with him or anyone. His thick cock strains against me with each downward lunge. He withstands my attempts to bring him to climax and firm hands are placed upon the fleshy portions of my hips to assist me. The force of his strokes acts like a drug that enters my system through my womanhood. Every impact connects my engorged hood with his pubic bone which I suddenly realize he's freshly depilated for me. I love fucking him like this and intense feelings seem to overwhelm me as I begin clenching his cock uncontrollably.

Spasms begin to rip through me and my pace slows. Soon my motion is more of a back and forth sliding that gives continuous contact of my clit along the length of him. This is finally too much for Dave and I can feel him suddenly throbbing inside me followed by his verbal release.

"Oh, fuck, that's good Rayne!"

"I like how smooth you are, it feels great," I tell him.

"I thought you might," he says as he shudders to his completion.

We continue slowly undulating and I lower my body to his so we can kiss. Our tongues search out the other's while our breathing returns to normal. After a while, he rolls me gently beside him and strokes my hair from my face. His hands caress my goose-bumped skin lightly while he continues to gaze at me adoringly. I can tell he's tired and will soon sleep, but I'm filled with an energy I haven't had in months. I lay with him and wait for him to drift off. When he is out, I climb from the bed and go to the restroom to freshen up.

My vigor remains high and is just the thing I need for the coming assignment at Ryan's condo. Dave stirs a little as I gather my clothes and begins to awake while I get dressed. He opens his eyes and I bend to kiss him as he had done for me the night before.

"You're leaving?"

"Yeah, I wish I could cancel this meeting, but it's an important one."

"A potential candidate?" he asks curiously.

"No, I think I met the candidate for lunch," I say and wink at him.

"Can you come back later?" he pleads.

"I might, you have been spoiling me."

"I promise to continue," he says pulling me down to him for a hug and another deep kiss.

"Let me see how this meeting goes; I might need a shoulder to cry on later."

"Okay, that's practically a 'yes'," he says and grins ear to ear.

"Bye," I say and am quickly out the door.

A brisk evening meets me when I get outside. I instantly wish I could have stayed with Dave in his warm condo and bed. Things were certainly looking good on that front. Now if things can just go well tonight. I turn the corner and head for Dupont Circle. There are some people still out and about, but much fewer than this afternoon. At the Metro Center I get off and switch to the Blue line where I am only slightly surprised to see Pyotr Belyakov who is also heading towards Ryan's place. For a split second, I think I will sit away from him, but this compartment is empty and I give in to sympathy for the dolt.

When I join him at his seat, which is at the farthest point from the doors, Pyotr tells me with his thick accent, "You smell of sex; who is unlucky guy?"

"Fuck off, Peter. You always bring that macho shit, but everyone knows your steroid use has made you impotent. Why are you even coming on this mission?"

"As if you don't know," he huffs, "I caught a lot of grief over my handling of this."

"I haven't spoken to Oleg or Vlad in days," I counter. "So, if you're in trouble, they've heard it from someone else."

"Really?" he asks.

"You have my word; I'm simply trying to clean this up."

"You're okay for a pizda, when I'm your boss -"

"Jesus, you really don't know when to quit when your ahead. Just shut up; you'll be lucky if they let you keep your balls, little use that they are."

He stews for a time and finally says, "You're going to need my help; we need to get in and out quickly."

He'll never be my boss because he doesn't understand the level of his incompetence in his new position. If we put people in the positions where they excel, he would only install equipment and his acknowledgment is the most truthful thing he's said in my presence. He will be useful for this part and I tell him, "Just do this right, maybe they won't send you home."

We sit in near silence while the train makes several stops. Some people get off but more get on. The numbers grow for the stops inside the perimeter and then begins to taper off a bit as we head toward the end of the line. There is still a decent number of people in our section when the train arrives at Franconia-Springfield station. As everyone deboards, we are at the back of the pack so we draw less attention and head towards the parking area to find Nina waiting with a white panel delivery van. Its decals have the name of a defunct electronics store so people won't look at it closely. When we get inside the whole gang of N is there, Nadya, Natalie and Nina. You probably couldn't find three more different people in Russia, and the amazing thing is that Nadya is Natalie's younger sister.

Climbing inside I see a crooked smile on Nadya's face and I ask her, "Do you have some good news for me?"

"Yes, I've retrieved some data we captured from Ryan's PC before we lost connectivity. It looks like he's applying to a couple of Law Schools, so I don't think we have much to worry about."

Nina begins driving and I reply, "That's good, but he probably hadn't been approached about running for Lieutenant Governor. Maybe he still hasn't, but that's all the more reason that we need to do this right."

"Okay well, I'm also attempting to get into the encrypted files. I do have one problem to report," she says hesitatingly.

"We seem to have a series of problems. Don't keep me waiting, tell me," I say anticipating the worst.

"It seems this Page thinks she has hacker skills. She set up a clunky trace back even our most junior analyst would have found. I sent her a note telling her how silly it was."

"You did what?!" I spit the question out angrily.

"Rayne, she has the mind of a child. If you could have seen this code -"

"You've let her know someone's looking!"

"I think their sudden departure from the house and message on his disabled phone tell us that already," Natalie replies raising to the defense of her sister.

"The great bpodq seems oblivious to the need for absolute secrecy on this," I say almost fuming.

"She knew already," Nadya persists.

"She knew, but left something a junior analyst would have found? You better hope you haven't been played," I tell her.

The van ride falls starkly silent with the exception of road noise over the next several minutes. Nina navigates us through the darkened streets and parks just around the corner from the condo where Ryan lives. Natalie is taking point, since she knows the place and might not look as suspicious if seen entering his condo. She puts in her earpiece, does a comm check with Nadya, exits the van and disappears around the corner towards his place.

Nadya is in back working the electronic equipment to assist us on comms and make sure the installed devices are working. As we wait for Natalie to get inside, we are all checking our gear and preparing to make this quick. Pyotr and I have workman's jackets and caps with matching logos to the van.

"I'm in and it's all clear," Nat says through her earpiece.

"Alright, let's go!" I say.

Pyotr and I get out and proceed with our gear toward the condo door, where Nat ushers us through swiftly. Inside the entryway, I don night-vision goggles and head down the hall while they finish getting prepared. At the end of the entry hall, there's an old circular thermostat. Approaching it, I'm thinking I can camouflage a camera inside the plastic covering and drain some power from the connection. When I flick the magnification up a couple notches, I suddenly realize there's a much smaller device already placed on the center and I twist my face away from it quickly.

Before Nat and Peter reach me, I'm waving them to stay back and softly report in my earpiece, "Turn on the jammer right now."

Nat fumbles in her satchel for several protracted moments, finds it and finally reports back, "Okay, set."

"There's already fucking surveillance in here!" I exclaim. "Peter, go back and check if there were any along the entryway. Use your magnifiers, this thing is very small."

"Should we take them out?" Pyotr asks as he heads slowly back down the hallway.

"No, leave them. We don't want whoever it is to know that we know," I say as I pull out a device that is supposed to detect them.

"Keep your faces covered, I'm not sure our jammer is working. We'll have to be careful and place ours in different locations and do as good a job of concealing them."

My statement assumes we can find them, since our detection instruments don't even seem to register them. Maybe they cut off if they sense jamming equipment. It concerns me that none of our instrumentation is as sophisticated as what I've just found and I wonder who has tech this good and beat us putting it here. Nat had checked the place before they broke up, but I suppose it could have been installed in the last few months. Either thought is giving me anxiety as we hurry to get done.

"Okay, let's make this quick," I tell them.

We each head off to a room to install a device. I selfishly assigned myself the kitchen so I could see where the video had originated. I wire a fish-eye into the ceiling lamp so next time we'll capture a better area than the one Nat had placed. When I head to Ryan's office, I find her working to remove the one she'd installed behind his key rack. She's got part of the power line fished out and is untangling it. I shake my head and continue to his office. First thing I do is put Nadya's special thumb drive into his PC. Then I attach a camera designed to fit right inside his phone cradle. It mounts right below the LED and has infrared capability to capture movement in the dark. I'm done, pull the drive which is finished blinking and meet Nat back in the hall.

"You get it fixed?" I ask her.

"Yes, and I put one in the guest bedroom," she says.

Pyotr comes out of Ryan's room and joins us in the hall. "We have two angles covering the bed and I hid some kompromat in his closet."

I'm not sure what he's planning and simply don't trust his judgment, so I ask, "What are you using?"

"It's something we've done before. There are paper documents of accounts in his name, with transfers of money into and out of them to various 'organizations'."

"Why put that in his bedroom and not the office?"

"So, he doesn't find it accidentally. We can bring it to his attentions if he isn't playing zee ball," he says mangling the English.

"Alright, let's get out," I say.

I'm unconvinced Ryan will be swayed by fake incriminating documents. We certainly aren't authorized to move that kind of money into his accounts but I guess Pyotr is grasping at straws. As we exit, we quickly uncover our faces and head to the awaiting van. The whole job took under thirty minutes and we're back in the van verifying comms to the devices.

Once everything is checked, I tell Nina to take us to Nat and Nadya's apartment for a post session meeting. If Pyotr is removed, there's a good chance I'll be put in complete charge of this case, but we need to get our heads back in the game. Along the drive I silently scowl about the levels of failure we seem to be experiencing. There's simply no other way to put it, we've been playing catch up while expending more resources than we should be.

If I weren't in the van, I might be having a full-blown panic attack. Of course, this isn't my case, but I don't like getting beaten and I even worry that I might have missed some of the same things Pyotr has. He let Nat back off too soon and she should have known better, but there were more missteps. Nadya doesn't usually make mistakes and her baiting of Page with a teasing note is out of character. There was also the issue of the additional surveillance we found. We only found one micro camera, but there were several noisy Chinese ones that were easily discovered.

I wonder, How had we missed another group or groups spying upon him? What had alerted Page or Ryan to the threat or threats? What is she and does she have her own agenda?

When we arrive at the sisters' apartment, we break into two groups. Team N takes the elevator, while Pyotr and myself take the stairs. I resist talking to him as I feel his eyes staring at my leggings from behind. We reach the door where Nat is awaiting us. Inside their office bpodq has an intense look on her face as she types furiously on her laptop.

"Okay, we need to get -" I start to say.

"Fuck! The video capture computer is compromised and that bitch may have my picture," Nadya screams as she starts powering things down. "Our location may be burned as well."

In a frenzy the young women disconnect every device and networked component in the office. This additional failure has put me in a very foul mood, but I bark out some orders as I take control.

"Pyotr, get the gear from the van and put surveillance up in here. Nadya, I need you to get your head in the game and stop letting this little girl own you. Nina, when Pyotr finishes take the van and get it swept. I think we need to abandon this apartment until we know how much has been gotten. Wipe it down, clear out anything that may have data on it. Nat, you go check out the backup office. Call back on the Hello line. Let it ring twice and hang up if it's clear. Follow protocol and check in with Oleg within twelve hours. I'm going to take the Metro and will be on my fail-safe number," I say pulling my battery and SIM-card and head for the door with Pyotr right behind me.

When the door closes, I say, "You need to get this shit under control or they are going to do worse than remove you from the team."

"How hell is zis happenzing?" he croaks.

"We've had our resources diverted for months now. Ryan barely lost that election."

At the bottom of the stairs, we part ways and I head toward the Metro station. I worry about even going to my flat when I remember that Dave has essentially invited me to return tonight. Perhaps I can lay low with him since it's not too late in the evening. With the fail-safe SIM-card and battery reinserted, I am on the network. I call Dave to tell him I'm accepting his offer and am on my way back. He mentions that I'm not calling from my usual number, and I fib that my phone has died. The ride and walk to his condo have my mind filled with crazy thoughts of how our whole operation may end up being burned by some young hacker chick.

When I finally reach Dave's door and ring the bell, he greets me in his pajama bottoms, "Hey, come on inside." After the door is closed, he hugs me and says, "I'm really glad you came back."

"Yeah, me too. I came here directly from my meeting, so I didn't get a change of clothes. But I'm wondering if maybe you'd be interested in getting out of DC over the holiday."

"You must be psychic! I submitted my multi-part article, to be printed over the next several days, shortly after you left. So, I was wondering if you'd be up for a trip?" he asks.

"Where were you thinking?" I ask excitedly.

"My family owns a ski resort in Vermont, or we could go where ever you were thinking."

"I was thinking warm, it feels like it's going to snow again, but skiing would be okay if there's a cozy fireplace."

"It's really up to you Rayne. My only constraints are that I have to be able to check e-mail and voice mail periodically. I've sent out numerous requests for comment for a follow-up piece. I need to be back a few days before New Year's Eve, but we could even go somewhere that evening if you like."

"Slow down cowboy. Let's see how this little trip goes," I tease him.

"Sorry, I just thought I'd let you know before you were surprised -"

"It's fine. I don't want to make the decision about warm or cold alone," I tell him.

"We can go somewhere warm that isn't effectively 'my turf'," he offers.

"I'm not afraid to be on 'your turf'," I tell him playfully.

"Okay, I'll confirm the reservations," he says and pulls out his phone.

"You already made them?"

"Well, I just submitted everything to my editor and I was thinking a break would be good."

His words were honest and pure, he'd already planned to ask but I hadn't known. The surprise catches me off guard and I'm not certain if I feel exposed or comforted that he's willing to commit to me like this. A sudden worry takes over me and I blurt out, "You were fairly certain I would go?"

"Well, I hoped. I made the reservations thinking we could have some fun and see where this is heading."

I'm an expert on reading people and Dave was being as open with me as anyone ever had. It startles me how disposed I am to allow our relationship to move forward and I jump at the opportunity to be away from DC for a time.