“No,” Nick said. “It has to be their idea. Otherwise there’s going to be hurt feelings afterward.”
“Uh-huh,” Noah said. “So you wait for women to offer you a threesome? Outside of porn flicks, in what world does that actually happen?”
“In Nick’s world,” Reese said. “Which can bear a marked resemblance to a porn flick. Kind of a James Bond high-end porn-flick crossover.”
“No kidding,” Noah muttered. “I bet if his car broke down, he’d knock on the nearest door and find sex-starved college girls having an orgy.”
“Of course not,” Reese said. “In the Nick version, it’s classy grown women holding a Tupperware party, which turns into an orgy after he arrives.”
“Okay, ha-ha,” Nick said. “Are you going to school today, Noah?”
Noah found his knapsack. Nick had to remind him to actually put his homework in it, but five minutes later they were off and Reese was headed to bed.
As they walked out the door, Noah said, “So, um, not that I’m likely to ever need it, but do you have any advice on threesomes? Like what to do, what not to do, and how not to piss one of the girls off. Are there guidelines?”
“There are.”
“And you’ll tell me?”
“Yes,” Nick said. “When you’re twenty-one.”
“What? There’s an age restriction?”
“Yes. It’s twenty-one. Before that, it would just be awkward and messy. Get in the car.”
At two that afternoon, Nick was driving across town. Very slowly, as one usually drove across New York on a weekday. Normally he’d have called a driver, but the instructions from Rhys Smith’s security team had been clear. Use your own car. Bring no one with you. He hadn’t even been given directions until he was on the road.
All very cloak-and-dagger, which would amuse the hell out of Reese after his James Bond joke. The truth was, Nick’s life resembled that of the international spy only superficially. Yes, he had no problems with women. Yes, he had money and knew how to dress, what to drive, and so on. He could hold his own in a fight or a car chase. But when it came to true espionage, he left that to the experts. Which is what he’d done with the search for Malcolm.
When Elena and Clay learned Malcolm was alive, they’d known exactly where to find him. In Nast Cabal custody, where he’d apparently been for the last decade, serving a prison term as a thug or an assassin—whatever use they had for a psychotic werewolf. Malcolm was a prize, and they’d kept him under the tightest security. So he should have been there when Elena negotiated for his return. Except he wasn’t. Elena and Clay had seen Malcolm while he was being escorted from his cell … and while the entire Cabal building was in chaos, after the CEO had been murdered. After they parted, it seemed Malcolm seized an opportunity, murdering his guards to escape.
Finding out Malcolm was alive had been bad enough. Alive, free, and knowing that Clay would come after him? That was a challenge Malcolm wouldn’t ignore. He would be biding his time, waiting for the Pack to lower its guard. Then he’d go after someone—Jeremy, Elena, the kids—to preempt Clay’s attack.
All this meant they couldn’t just keep their ears to the ground and wait for Malcolm to surface. They needed to pull in whatever resources they could. For Nick, that meant hiring Rhys Smith’s team of supernatural mercenaries.
Rhys’s team had been on the job for two months. A guy named Ness was in charge of Nick’s case. Though Nick had met a couple of the agents actually tracking Malcolm, he’d only communicated with Ness by text and e-mail. Now Ness was in New York and had an update for him. He wanted to meet face-to-face to discuss it.
The directions led to a motel. As he pulled in, he had to text again for “final instructions,” which turned out to be a room number. He was told to park in front of the room. He did … eventually. First, he pulled into the restaurant lot next door and left his car between two rigs, while he slipped out and checked behind the motel room. There was a man there, not visibly armed, though Nick was sure he had a gun tucked under his jacket. Rhys’s agents didn’t rely on their supernatural powers alone.
Nick got downwind enough to catch the guy’s scent. An ID check of sorts. It was no one Nick recognized, so he just filed the information.
Next he checked the front of the motel. A guy sat in a pickup reading a map. He’d been reading it since Nick drove in. Another operative.
Nick returned to his car, parked in front of the proper room, and walked to the door.
3. NICK
When Nick knocked, a man opened the motel room door. Mid-forties. Trim. Well dressed. This, Nick presumed, was Ness. Yet no introduction was offered. The man brought him inside, and Nick noticed a second possibility—a fifty-something guy with a slight paunch.
There was a third person in the room. A woman. All Nick could see of her was her ass. He wasn’t complaining, though. It was a very nice ass, a perfectly rounded curve under a pencil skirt as she bent over a table, writing. There were legs, too, even if they weren’t the first thing he noticed. Black nylons with seams running down shapely calves. Black heels, high enough to be sexy, but not impractically so. And there was hair, dark, curling waves tumbling almost to the desk as she wrote.
The first man cleared his throat. Nick thought he’d been caught ogling, but the guy only seemed to be getting his colleague’s attention. The woman finished what she was doing, straightened, and turned, and the view didn’t get any worse. She wasn’t young—maybe late thirties. She wasn’t classically beautiful, either, but it would have been almost a disappointment if she’d been twenty and gorgeous. This was far more interesting—a striking mature woman with the body of a ’40s pinup.
She extended a hand and walked over. “Vanessa.”
It took a moment for him to make the connection, and mentally kick himself for his presumption.
“Ness?” he said.
She smiled. “Yes, but in person, it’s Vanessa, please.”
They shook hands.
“Normally these guys would give you a pat-down, but considering what you are, you don’t need a weapon to kill me. So I think we can skip that part.”
She dismissed the two men, who left to stand guard outside. Vanessa waved Nick to a table with two chairs. He took one. As he sat, she flipped through a sheaf of pages.
“I’m sorry to call you in on such short notice,” she said, “but I was in town on business, and there’s been a break in your case. It seemed like a good opportunity for us to meet, rather than send another agent to update you.”
“Thank you.”
“You have been pleased with the agents I sent to update you, though, haven’t you?”
She continued flipping pages, her gaze down, but there was a note in her voice that made Nick tense.
“I know they were pleased with you,” she said before he could answer. “Very pleased.”
Now Nick intentionally didn’t reply, waiting and gauging her voice, her posture.
Vanessa lowered herself into the remaining chair. “I’m wondering if there’s a specific type you’d like me to send next time, Mr. Sorrentino. Blonde? Redhead? Brunette?”
Shit.
She continued. “I debrief my agents after they meet a client. They don’t hold anything back. Whatever happened regarding a mission I hear about it.”
Nick straightened. “I don’t know what Jayne told you, but I can assure you, I did not take advantage—”
“Oh, I know. It was mutual. There’s no question of that. I’m just curious how I could send you two of my best, most professional agents, and you manage to have sex with both.”