Page 52 of The Diamond Thief
21
Jacob
Having Jade in my arms this time is completely different.
We know each other now. She’s not just an anonymous call girl, courtesy of Sylvester. She’s someone like me. A thief. Stealthy. Tricky. Definitely better than I was at her age.
And no doubt, even as our feet move to the music, planning her escape.
But she doesn’t seem to want it right now. I sense that she is all in as we circle the sofa in the living quarters of the bunker.
Her body is pressed against mine, and those luscious breasts I remember so well tempt me sorely.
The playlist shifts from one slow blues number to the next. I move us along to theshh shhof the cymbals, the melancholy call of the saxophone. I like this. I like her. It’s difficult to admit, but there it is.
I feel unsure about everything. The swords. Holding her here. I feel unanchored. My life goals, once so sure, a straight line from where I was and where I wanted to be, no longer feel quite as certain.
I stroke the silky strands of her blond hair, bright, sleek, and short compared to the last time we came together.
She didn’t even want to go with a wig. She took it all the way.
Same as with me.
I flash with an unfamiliar bolt of jealousy, thinking about her using her wiles for some other job, on some other man. The realization that I don’t control her, who she’s with, and where she goes, stirs an anger beneath my content surface.
Without thinking, I ask her, “Have you considered an early retirement?”
She stiffens a little. “Why would I do that? I’ve just begun.”
“The swords, I mean. There are many who would consider that enough.”
She continues to move with me across the floor, but I sense now that her mind is elsewhere. Dammit. I’ve wrecked our easy evening already with my damn jealousy. I need to get this girl away from me, out of my head.
“Do you mean retire with you?” she asks, incredulity in her voice.
“It was just a question.”
“Some question.”
My legs move more stiffly now, my composure back in place. What the hell just happened to me? Ridiculous. This third-rank female thief is nothing compared to me. I need to get past all this and forget her.
But not until I’ve had my fill of her. It is true that I’ve sometimes requested a call girl a second time, but almost never a third. The second is always a disappointment compared to the first. Jade will be no different.
I crush my mouth against hers, taking her lips the way I take everything, brutally and with iron control.
I pull her painfully against me, so close that I can feel the bones of her rib cage, pressing into my skin.
But she lets out a strangled moan. I forgot, she likes this. She wants me rough. My groin stirs painfully. The need to punish her pulses in my veins. I dislike the way I felt for a moment, that uncontrolled need that she brought out in me. I want to command her, make her do my bidding. I want to break her down into nothing, a crumbling pile of bones at my feet.
“Undress for me,” I say, and take a step back.
I expect that she will argue, remind me that I am not paying for her, that we no longer have the ruse of patron and call girl.
But she doesn’t. She keeps her eyes locked to mine as she shrugs off the sweater over her turtleneck.
Her clothes are black and form-fitting. Every curve of her body is accentuated, outlined against the simple decor of this bunker. She is, without a doubt, the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.
Her thumbs go into the waistband of her yoga pants and begin to slide them down.
