I raise my eyes to his in surprise, and I see nothing but determination on his face.
No condemnation.
No anger.
Nothing but fortitude to get the job done well.
“Then let’s get to work,” I say as I scoot my chair forward and rest my arms on the table. This is a temporary reprieve for me, but I feel immediate relief we aren’t confronting what happened in Simon’s office just yet. “Tell me the basics.”
Wyatt scoots forward and leans his arms on the table as well, loosely twining his fingers. “It’s only going to be Simon and me taking you to the sale. No clue who the buyer will have with him, so that’s an unknown.”
“We should plan for there to be several,” I pipe in.
Wyatt nods. “Exactly. Gomez wants to put a tracker on you, but I nixed that idea, and we’ll just depend on him to follow the GPS on my phone. While I don’t think Simon doubts you or me, I don’t want to risk it if he chooses to search you.”
“I’m fine with that,” I tell him. “When will you arm me?”
“Just before the sale. They think I’m drugging you with a dose of Ecstasy and ketamine. That would make you a little loopy. I told Lance I’d drug you right after your last dance and then take you to Simon’s office to wait. You should act a little buzzed, totally compliant, and in a really good mood. Our cover is that we’re taking you to an after-hours party to dance.”
“Sounds good,” I say as I nod my head. “And how about this… put me in the car unarmed… backseat. I’ll pretend to fall asleep. You make sure you’re the one that has to get me out of the car… maybe just positioning yourself near the car. When you reach in to wake me up… pull me out, whatever, have a gun in your waistband for me to grab.”
Wyatt gives me a small smile. “That’s pretty good. Let’s do that.”
“So, how do you want the bust to go down?”
“We need the money to change hands. This is where a whole lot of luck will be involved. I expect Simon will want to take the cash, so I’ll keep a grip on your arm while that’s happening. I imagine Simon will then tell me to hand you over. That’s when we need to draw our weapons.”
“It would really help if we could make sure they were segregated somewhat,” I muse.
“Right… make it easier for us to cover them without getting in each other’s way,” he finishes. “How about you create a bit of a diversion? Maybe fight with me a little before I hand you over. I’ll give you a little push toward the buyer and that’s the signal for both of us to draw?”
“That’s perfect,” I say with a respectful smile. “They’ll be caught a little off guard. Only downside is if the buyer brings his own security detail. We’re in the dark about this guy… no clue what type of power he has.”
“That’s the major unknown,” Wyatt agrees and leans back in the chair, latching his hands behind his head in contemplation. He stretches his legs out under the table, accidentally kicking me in the foot.
“Sorry,” he mutters, pulling his legs back and sitting back up straight in his chair.
That’s all it takes… a barely there touch and our business-like groove has been broken.
Our eyes lock across the table, and I can’t help but blurt out. “I’m really sorry about what happened this evening.”
Wyatt immediately throws a hand up to stop me. “Don’t. It’s done and we need to just forget about it.”
“But I can’t,” I say quietly, and with my feelings just a bit bruised that he could so easily forget what we did. I mean… I know it was all “in the line of duty,” but damn it… it was also an intimate moment for me.
Clearly not to him though.
“Look, Andrea. It happened and while maybe that wasn’t the best course of action, it’s over and done with. It worked… Lance never suspected us, so consider it a victory.”
“A victory?” I say with an almost hysterical bark of a laugh. “I fucking violated you. I feel so damned guilty about it, and I don’t—”
“Don’t,” Wyatt barks at me as he lunges across the table. His hands grab ahold of mine, and he squeezes my fingers so he has my attention. “Don’t you dare feel guilty.”
“But I took advantage of you… of the situation. The more I think about it, the more I know we should have just faked it. It would have worked. It was so unnecessary for me to do that, and you were so angry at me after that. I knew it was wrong. I knew I had violated you.”
“No, Andrea,” Wyatt says in a low, reassuring voice. “You can’t go back and dissect your decisions. You made a split-second decision to do what you thought was best for us to maintain our covers. I’m not going to second-guess your decision, so you shouldn’t either.”
Oh, a wave of guilt crashes over me again, because Wyatt doesn’t exactly get what’s at the crux of my turmoil. Yeah, my mind might have been thinking that it was a good, tactical decision, but only I know that there was a personal element involved as well. I wanted to take him in my mouth. I wanted to make him come. I wanted to have a personal connection with him.
“I could have stopped you,” Wyatt says softly, breaking into my thoughts. “But I’m a man, and you are an extremely beautiful woman whom I’m attracted to. I’m being straight up honest with you… the minute your hand wrapped around my cock, I wanted you to do it.”