26. Adam

26

ADAM

T wo days after chatting with Fabian a text drops into my phone from an unknown number. It’s a picture of Arty Maroz and Anna walking along some waterfront. I examine the skyscrapers behind them— the East River? Anna is carrying a coffee, and they don’t look friendly exactly, but I don’t see a great deal of animosity either.

Of interest?

is all the message says. Followed by:

This guy is a tool. He trains for most of the day and gets into arguments with people all the time.

Fabian. I tap in a reply:

Sounds about right.

I press the button to call him.

“Hey,” I say. “What’s this picture? How did you get it?”

“Ah … I might have omitted to tell you I put a tail on Arty Maroz.”

“Because that’s something normal people do.”

“Well, yeah. His life is a car crash, but hacking into his life didn’t give me anything to explain why he’s hassling Anna and why he visited you, so I thought I’d go old school.”

“So … when was this taken?”

“Yesterday.”

My whole body locks up.

“What the hell? Anna met with Maroz yesterday ?” I can’t suck enough oxygen into my lungs. “Are you certain ?”

“It’s timestamped, so yes, I’m sure.”

“She has a restraining order against him.” They’re talking. She’s walking her dog. “Why the fuck is she on some waterfront with Maroz? With Pepper?”

“Yeah, it’s pretty odd.”

“Fuck. I haven’t told her you’re looking into Maroz.” What is she doing? He tried to attack her at an event and … “Perhaps she’s trying to persuade him to back off. He’s still suing her for ownership of Pepper.” A long groan seeps out before I can stop it. “How do I always end up with women who say one thing and do another?”

“Adam. You got unlucky one time; this is nothing like that. You don’t know what’s going on here. It’s one photograph. Nobody knows we’re digging into him, okay? He could have something on her that she doesn’t want made public. He might have forced this meeting.”

“Blackmail? You always did like the conspiracy theories. Sounds likely, though, given what you said about his finances.”

“You’d be surprised how often something ’s going on. Blackmail’s more common than you’d think.”

“Did you find anything on Pietr Petrov?”

“I’ve been concentrating on Maroz, but I’ll dig into Petrov a bit more.”

“I need to talk to her about this picture. What the hell am I going to say?”

“Just tell her you were worried about her and thought looking into Maroz might help. Simple enough.”

“Yeah. Can’t help feeling I went behind her back, though. ”

“It came from a genuine place of concern. She’s not going to be unhappy with that.”

“Yeah, I suppose so. Thanks, Fab.”

“Should I say it’s my pleasure? I’m not sure. I’ll keep digging.”

When I head over to Anna’s later on, unease is still burning through me. What is she doing, and why didn’t she say anything? But I guess I didn’t tell her I was enlisting Fabian to dig into Arty, did I?

When I reach her building, the street is empty apart from a few pedestrians. No men with cameras. Maybe she met with Maroz to calm things down. That would make sense: If he stops creating a media storm, all the hassle goes away.

Anna meets me at the door, her hair down around her shoulders and soft-looking lounge gear clinging to every muscle. I can’t resist pulling her in for a kiss, and she smiles against my lips.

“I have a confession to make,” I say, as I follow her from the door to the kitchen island.

She swings around and blinks at me. “Something bad?”

I shake my head. “Arty Maroz visited me. So, I asked my hacker friend Fabian to do a little digging into him.”

She turns away toward the sink, silky hair falling forward. “What do you mean, he visited you? He came to your office ?” When I nod, she says, “That asshole. He doesn’t know when to stop interfering.”

“He told me to stay away from you. Like a warning. It was odd, to be honest.” I scroll to the picture on my phone and hand it over to her. “But Fabian had him followed, and this photo was taken yesterday. I …”

Her eyes are wide on the phone when I place it on the countertop in front of her and my stomach sinks into my shoes. No famous person wants someone she’s sleeping with to set a tail on them and start taking photographs: There are quite enough paparazzi doing that. It’s very stalkerish.

“I wasn’t trying to spy on you, Anna. You didn’t mention seeing him and …”

She rolls her lips together. “That’s the problem with people that dig for dirt—they always find it.” Her voice is sharp, a tone in it I don’t think I’ve ever heard before.

I swallow. “Are you saying there’s some dirt on you and Arty? You’re entitled to meet with him, I just … You have a temporary order of protection against him. I wanted to tell you I had this picture. It would be dishonest not to.”

Her shoulders relax a bit, and she turns toward me.

“I met up with him to try and stop him from hassling me. You. Us. To see whether I could make him go away. He asked for a million dollars.”

“A million dollars!”

“Yeah. Now I wonder whether he’s always seen me as a meal ticket and that’s why he’s being such a pain in the ass. He wants money.”

I step into her and wrap my arms around her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to sound like I was suspicious. You don’t need to tell me what you do.”

She shakes her head. “I get it, Adam. I know this violates the restraining order, and I shouldn’t have met him but … sometimes I want to knock problems on the head, you know? I don’t like sitting around waiting for something bad to happen or think about seeing him in court.”

This sounds so like Janus that I almost laugh out loud.

“Did your friend Fabian find anything else useful?” she adds.

“Apart from an email account full of porn sites and gambling debts and a disastrous bank balance, you mean?”

Anna leans back and stares up at me. “He got into his bank account ?”

“I don’t think that’s even that difficult these days. He’s very good at what he does.”

“I guess that explains the demand for money.” Anna’s eyes dart around, narrowing on the countertop.

“What are you thinking?” I ask.

“Whether Fabian could get me ammunition on people in Russia. People who might want to manipulate me for one reason or another.”

“Manipulate you?”

She shakes her head. “It’s dog-eat-dog in Russia. In sport. People hold things over other people and blackmail them. Everybody is trying to grab a little bit more than everyone else. You’re always looking over your shoulder.”

Well, it’s not quite the deal Maroz was talking about, but it sounds similar. I slump into her. I need to remember that Anna is as tough as old boots. “You could talk to Fabian. He’s had some dealings with Russian hackers in the past.”

“He has? Wow. Let me think about it. Some of these people are ones you wouldn’t want to cross. Who knows what they’d do if they found out you or I had some dirt on them?”

One day, I hope she’ll tell me more about all this. It’s odd the relationship I have with Anna. We’ve agreed we’re not boyfriend/girlfriend and we’re exploring this, but she’s a famous person: Do I have the right to ask questions? I’d rather she spontaneously shared things. She’s been badly burned in the past, and who am I? Some random stranger she met about a month ago. But I want to be more than that. I want to be her person. She’s the most remarkable woman I’ve ever met.

My body is reminding me of the unfortunate consequences of standing next to Anna while I’m trying to have a serious conversation with her. When I’m close to her, my mind replays the nights we’re in bed together like they’re on a permanent reel. And she must sense some shift in my mood because she lifts her head and gives me a small smile.

“I’m sorry. I don’t want you to think that …” I start.

“It’s fine, Adam. You’re honest about what you’re doing, and it means a lot. It’s rarer than you’d think.”

Sliding my hand into her hair, I trail my lips over hers, and she grabs my neck and pulls me right into her body. I push her against the wall, mouth greedy as I harden in my jeans. Her other hand reaches into my back pocket, strong fingers squeezing, so I hoist her up and she winds her legs around my waist as I carry her down the corridor. And fuck, she’s as eager as I am because, as soon as I set her feet on the floor of the bedroom, she yanks my shirt out of my pants with unsteady hands, grabbing the collar and trying to wrestle it over my head. Breath saws in and out of my chest. When I take over getting my shirt off, her questing fingers run all over my torso, mapping my muscles, and it makes me grateful for all those long years of jujitsu training. I’m pulling her top over her head when she undoes the first button on my waistband and then pops several more.

“Oh God,” she says, on a gulp, fingertips brushing my erection. “I need …”

I swallow her words with my mouth; she doesn’t have to say it. I want this, too: the hot tightness of her down my length. My years of abstinence have made me insatiable. I pull my wallet out of my pocket, fumbling for the condom before handing it over to her, throwing the wallet to the floor, followed by my jeans and boxers that I step out of and kick away. As I peel her soft gym pants over her hips, she shimmies her panties down and I shuffle forward until the backs of her knees hit the bed, and she falls onto the covers and I follow her down, shifting so we’re fully on the mattress. She takes me in her hand and plays with the base of my cock and, as her fingers drift down to my balls, all the muscles in my pelvis lock tight.

“I love you doing that,” I whisper. “It feels so good.”

She winds a strong leg around my thigh as I press into her, bringing her other knee to my hip and adjusting herself to get me right where she wants me. I rut against her. Fuck, can I not take anything slow with this woman? Maybe one day .

But she’s pressing on my chest insistently, so I lift up onto my hands, taking in her flushed cheeks and dark, stormy eyes. Turned-on Anna . Her fingers trail down my body and find my length again, rubbing her thumb tantalizingly over the tip and my hips move, pushing into her hand. But she brings her other hand up to her mouth and rips open the condom packet with her teeth before rolling the latex down. Then she wriggles closer and guides me to her entrance. As I push forward, she gives around me, all tightness and heat as I press slowly inside and her muscles clamp down . Holy shit. My cock twitches, and I groan as I bury my head in her neck. This is always so good.

“Anna,” I mumble into her damp skin, trailing hot kisses over her collarbone.

Goosebumps follow the path of my mouth, and she rocks her hips up, pulling me farther in, undulating all around me. So I reach between us and play gently with her clit as she gasps, her legs widening to make more room for my hand and I pull back my hips, thrusting slowly through it, my fingers wandering all over slippery skin.

Her head thunks into my shoulder, and her head turns into my throat, mouth open in a silent plea, wet and warm, and it makes me feel like a king that I can make her come apart like this.

“Adam,” she says in a strangled voice.

She’s so slick, everything hot and loose, and I roll us onto our sides, deepening my thrusts.

“You’re soaked,” I say. “I want to taste all this later, get it all over my face,” and when I test my teeth on her neck, she twitches around me. Close.

“Do you remember,” I whisper as I thrust into her, “how wet you got when I put my mouth on you last night? How much you liked my tongue just here?” I slide my hand between us to play, and she moans into my throat. I’m relentless as I push into her. Fuck, I’m on the edge, too, my release tingling in my balls and up my cock.

“Oh God, Adam,” she gasps. “Please, you need to … oh God … please …”

My stomach knots. We’ve come at this so fast, yet again. One day I’ll be able to savor this for longer, but it feels impossible right now. I don’t let up with my fingers and she starts to fall, her head lifting up, hot breath on my neck, a long groan pressing into my skin that sounds like the best sound in the world.

“Yes, Anna,” I hiss as my whole crotch tightens, sweet sensations burning through my legs and curling my toes. “Oh, fuck .”

I’m dimly aware of pushing so hard that I’m moving her across the bed as I tip over the edge, shudders ripping through me as everything shimmers around the periphery of my vision, and an inky blackness curls in at the corners and narrows my focus down to beads of sweat on sweet, pale skin.

Hot.

Hot.

I’m so fucking hot.

The light on the nightstand fades in at the edges of black. My hands are tensed on Anna’s ass in a bruising grip, and her head is resting on my shoulder. As I tilt my head trying to look down at her, she’s completely motionless, her breath coming in short gasps, so I move back and prop myself up on my elbow, taking in her pale face. I pull back onto my knees and remove the condom, tying a knot in it before disappearing into the bathroom. When I come back, Anna is lying on her back, eyes closed, hands now splayed over her head. Crawling onto the bed, I lie down next to her, and she turns her head, opening her eyes and examining me.

Her lips curve up slowly. “Oh my God,” she says, making me laugh.

I shift onto my back, and lightness lifts my chest. She doesn’t think I’m some crazy, desperate guy, then. Rolling onto her side, she shuffles into me, palm snaking over my ribs and the warmth of how she curls into me all night, and how much I like it, winds its way around me like she’s cast a spell. My limbs are like deadweights. It’s been a hell of a day and for her, too, it seems. Words bubble up and sink back down again, so I sit forward, pulling the comforter from the bottom of the bed over us, and the world drifts away.