Nobody Does It Better

She hurried the call to an end and tossed the cell phone onto the bed. A shower, a good night’s sleep and her suitcase should be here tomorrow morning.

Glass half full.

3

THE LOCK CLICKED INTO PLACE on the other side of his door leading to the washroom, and Gage settled back onto the bed in his adjoining room, the laptop monitor giving him a clear view of the loo and the Gorgon’s room. The Gorgon proceeded to examine the washroom. She peered into the corners, stood on her tiptoes to check the showerhead and even gave the toilet itself a cursory once-over.

He grinned and crossed his arms behind his head. He wasn’t sure what she used in the way of spyware, but Gage employed cutting-edge technology. She could look all day and never detect the motion-activated audio-video equipment planted in both rooms.

She offered an almost imperceptible shrug and leaned into the washroom mirror, peering at her face. A queer feeling jolted through him and he shook it off. Her eyes were positively arresting, yet the rest of her face was singularly unremarkable except for a slightly lush mouth.

She sighed and stepped back. Without ceremony, she unzipped and slipped out of her trousers. He wasn’t a voyeur and he would only watch her undress for as long as it took to ascertain she didn’t have any information hidden on her.

Her top came past her thighs, but Gage would’ve had to be a eunuch—and he wasn’t—not to notice and appreciate the lovely length of shapely leg. The Gorgon boasted the legs of a 1940’s pinup girl. She neatly folded her trousers and placed them on a towel on the washbasin’s edge.

In one fluid motion she tugged the top over her head and all the air seemed to suck right out of Gage’s body. Lush rounded curves covered by black knickers, cut high on the thigh and low on the hip, and a black bra. In the center of her chest a small zippered travel pouch was affixed to her two bra straps. Unsnapping the pouch, she stacked it and her top on her trousers.

She raised her arms over her head as she arched her back in a sinuous stretch—a siren’s call, all the more difficult not to heed as she was unaware of her audience—and then brought them down and back. She slowly rotated her head on her neck, as if ridding herself of the day’s tension, and then rolled her shoulders in an unerringly erotic motion.

She reached between her breasts and unhooked her bra. One simple shrug of her elegantly rounded shoulders and it was gone, joining her trousers and top.

Throughout the years, his gallery had displayed countless art pieces with nude subjects in varying states of undress. Strictly as a chap who appreciated the human form as a work of beauty, he was appreciative. Her back, from neck to hip, was a fluid, sensual work of art. Golden brown nipples tipped full breasts. As a man who hadn’t had a lover in months, he noted the alabaster globes, the slight rounding of her belly and the curve of her hips.

She turned and started the shower, stepping aside to avoid the spray. While the water heated, she skimmed her knickers off. A triangle of crisp curls covered the apex between her thighs and her lush bum formed an inverted heart at the base of her spine.

Desire, usually buffered by an emotional distance, slammed into him with a force that shook him. Intense wanting knifed through him, bypassing all rationale and objectivity. She stepped under the shower spray and he deliberately looked away from the screen, drawing a deep breath and holding it before exhaling slowly.

He’d never reacted this way, felt such a…connection to anyone before. His detachment seemed to have deserted him at a most inopportune time.

His operative task was broken down into a series of small objectives, which would ultimately lead to him attaining his primary goal. This particular objective had been satisfied. His cock stirred and he grimaced. Satisfied was a piss-poor choice of wording. How about met? He’d met his objective. He’d ascertained she wasn’t hiding any documents or goods in her clothing, although it could still be in her knapsack or the small pouch she’d worn. To watch her shower moved beyond his professional role and there was no room for that. She was a job. An assignment. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Out of nowhere she moaned, a low, husky direct feed in his ear. Like an adrenaline hit, it shot straight to his cock. What the hell? He glanced at the screen. Her head was tilted back. Water cascaded over her shoulders and the slopes of her honey-tipped breasts, running in rivulets over her belly and down the length of her legs, darkening her pubic hair.

Blood pooled between his thighs, thickening his cock to full attention. So caught up was he in the water flowing over her nakedness, he reached between his legs before he realized what he was about to do.

Bloody hell. He’d never sat about wanking his tool while on assignment and he wasn’t about to take it up now. He deliberately looked away, willing his cockstand back down.

He’d go one better than a cold shower. He’d ring Mason with an update.

“Everything’s in place?” Mason said. “You had time to set up?”

“Yes. She made contact on her mobile. She says everything is set to proceed as normal tomorrow. She referenced a Ming who’s to be picked up tomorrow and she warned he would try to get out.”

“We’ll see what we can find on a Ming. Any other names? Other references?” Mason’s voice sharpened with impatience.

Wouldn’t he have said so? Gage merely said, “No. What about her case? Find anything of interest?”

“It’s clean. We destroyed it, ripped out the seams in her trousers and knickers, even took the locks apart, nothing. Not that we really expected to find much. Anything of consequence will be on her.”

Perhaps in her backpack, or in the pouch she’d carried in her bra but not immediately on her now. The Gorgon was too seasoned to hide anything in her case, although sometimes, the best course of action was the least-anticipated move.

In the next room, the shower stopped. He quickly disconnected the phone.

Listening to the sound of her toweling herself dry, Gage prided himself on his professionalism. There was no need to watch her until she left the washroom. Unfortunately, he seemed singularly incapable of not seeing her in his mind’s eye.

Water splashed in the sink and the accompanying sound of her brushing her teeth echoed in his earpiece. The water ran a bit longer and a quick glance at the screen revealed she was rinsing out her knickers, the hotel towel wrapped around her, sarong-style. In short order, she unlocked his door from the inside, indicating it was free for him to use it, exited the washroom and immediately locked her bedroom door behind her.

He watched her via the monitor as she hung her clothes in the wardrobe and her knickers on a hanger to dry. She retrieved a pair of glasses and a small notebook and pen from her knapsack, placing them on the bedside stand.

Gage had monitored other operatives numerous times and always with a clinical detachment. Why then did it feel so intimate to watch her perform these routine tasks?

The Gorgon stood before her bedroom mirror and finger-combed her tangled hair. “My kingdom for a blow dryer,” she muttered before turning away in disgust. Gage grinned. Poor Gorgon. But that’s what one got when one made a living selling secrets.

She pulled off the towel and draped it over the chair back. “I guess I’ll just have to wear the sheet if there’s a fire in the middle of the night,” she said to her reflection, wrinkling her nose in an innocent way. But Gage knew better. He knew the bad guys weren’t always all bad and he knew the good-guy’s hats were more often gray than white. Still, it struck him as…well, rather cute. One didn’t expect the Gorgon to display a cute side when she was alone in her room talking to herself in the mirror. That’d get him in for a bloody evaluation in no time. Yes,Mason, the Gorgon displays a cute side to her when she’salone. For chrissakes, puppies and kittens were cute, not sodding spooks. Actually, it’d almost be worth it just to watch the look on Mason’s face at the thought of his number one agent slipping over the edge.

THE GORGON GASPED HER pleasure. The blond man—was his name Raymond?—tugged harder at her nipple held between his fingers and alternately sucked and nipped at the one in his mouth.

“Do you like that?” Tightening his grip on her massage-oil-slicked thighs, the dark-haired Trevor worked his cock in and out of her harder and faster. She slid her hand up and down Raymond’s engorged penis in the same rhythm, scraping her nail lightly against the sensitive ridge on the underside.

Rule one: Don’t limit sex to good-looking, well-endowed men. Often the less-attractive ones, or those with smaller dicks, were more grateful and thus much more easily manipulated. They also tried harder to please.

Rule two: She was in charge…and they knew it. No one came until she came.

Rule three: Never let them know her real name or her number. She contacted them. It kept it simple and it kept them needy. Even the ones with girlfriends or wives came, no pun intended, when she called. Sometimes, the men even brought their significant others along. She, the Gorgon—she rather liked thinking of herself by that name—had an appetite for things the wives and girlfriends often didn’t.

And rule four: Sex was better with three on the playing field.

On the hotel nightstand, her phone vibrated. It’d be him with an update. She’d instructed him to text rather than call, telling him she had a meeting. Paranoia, possessiveness and insecurity on his part all worked to her advantage, but he wouldn’t like it if he knew what she was doing now.

“Hold that thought, gentlemen,” she said, unhanding Raymond’s cock. He was the less gifted of the two in the size department. She had plans for him after the commercial break.

She slid up the four-hundred-thread count Egyptian cotton sheets and flipped open her phone. She downloaded the text message and quickly scanned it.

A slow smile curved her mouth and the sexual excitement she’d felt with Raymond and Trevor intensified. Everything in Europe was going precisely as she’d planned. Carswell had been unleashed on the unsuspecting Holly Smith. She flipped her phone closed.

She got off on this spy business. She’d kind of miss it when she retired. She’d have to find something else to occupy her. And this news definitely called for a celebration. She rolled to her knees and turned to Trevor, where he waited at the end of the bed. “I think it’s time we switched things around, gentlemen.” She crawled the length of the bed on her hands and knees, her breasts swinging free and heavy. Braced on one hand, she wrapped her other hand around Trevor’s cock, teasing her tongue along the tip. He quivered in her palm and her smile widened.

She paused to glance over her shoulder at Raymond. “You’re invited to the party, too. But use the back door.”

Yes, this called for a celebration, indeed.

GAGE LOUNGED ABOUT IN his bed the following morning, content to do nothing. A bit of a lie-in had always been one of his guilty pleasures. His hard-ass grandfather, the Colonel, had considered it heretical and it hadn’t gone over well at boarding school, either.

Better still if it was a lazy rainy day and he had a spot of feminine company between the sheets.

He stretched and bunched the pillow beneath his head. It wasn’t as if he could do anything until the Gorgon made a move. Thus far, she’d made an early-morning visit to the loo, which he’d not watched once he ascertained there was nothing in her hands.

She nabbed her mobile and dialed, hugging one naked arm around her naked waist right below her naked breasts. Why didn’t she put on some bloody clothes? All that nakedness was damned distracting. Naked was a good look on her.