Chapter 11
"I'm going nuts here," I said, chopping off a leg from the raw chicken I was dismantling to fry southern-style for the team's lunch. Lord knew I'd cooked my best dishes, including the top middle-America meals men loved, just to coax Sam out of that room. Pot pies for twenty people, for God's sake! "Obviously, I'm no good to anyone in an apron. If you don't let me back into this investigation fast, I'm going to snap. And that means Mallory will be standing over this stove again, so don't blame me for the sudden outbreak of heartburn. You need to get over your objections and unlock that damn door."
Vilet returned his blank face. His unmoved, dispassionate, disinterested face. Refusing to interfere with Sam's blockade hadn't surprised me, but that he knew even less about what Sam was doing on the other side of those doors was damn-well unacceptable.
Whack. Off came the other leg. "You're supposed to be in charge here." Another chop of the butcher knife and I'd split the chicken's spine. "We both know Sam's head is stuck in the sand, and I can't feed you information from out here. Get me back into the game, so I can move this case forward and we can both nail these bastards. Sam needs me to help him put the pieces together. You need me."
Vilet raised a brow.
"Fine. So maybe Sam doesn't know he needs me. Maybe..." I stopped chopping, leaned onto the butcher block. If I couldn't actively defend myself in this investigation, I was cooked. And if I couldn't see Sam, if he never wanted to be in the same room with me again, then, hell...Vilet might as well ship me off to Guantanamo. "Maybe I just need him."
I dropped the chicken parts in a buttermilk bath. Why did I even bother arguing? Vilet wouldn't help me. My tantrum only proved how unstable his spy was under pressure. Yelling at Mallory, Sam's personal valet these past three days, for assisting him would have proved more effective. Shit. I needed to put a carton of Valium on the next shopping list.
"At least let me help Sam prove his own innocence. He didn't do anything wrong. He couldn't even move that night, he was so drugged. And somehow, someway I can prove that."
Vilet cleared his throat. "I just came to tell you that you're off kitchen duty tonight."
I stopped mid-whack and lowered the butcher knife slowly. That blow I hadn't expected. How could Vilet take this away from me now? Keeping busy cooking was my only refuge from sitting still upstairs, alone. Hell, I'd only made mashed potatoes for lunch so I could spend extra time in the kitchen peeling a hundred spuds, hoping to get a glimpse of Sam coming or going.
Duh alert: this was Special Agent in Charge Vilet, Master of Cruel Intentions.
Vilet pivoted and left. "But okay."
"Okay? Okay what? Okay, you'll let me back in the game, or okay you'll make Sam come out, or okay you're just approving the bulk order of ribs, or—" I stopped babbling when I heard his office door shut.
Vilet was full of surprises, the kind with price tags, I reminded myself. Still, I looked up to the camera, closed my eyes, and mouthed two words I never expected to offer Vilet.
***
Bared head to toe, I slithered up to Sam's naked, glistening body, and purred to tease him into a full-throttle erection. The outline of his mouth breathed through a cotton sheet covering his face. Mounting him smoothly, I nestled onto his hips, rocking to grow more comfortable as he stretched my inner walls to capacity. The hunger driving me didn't care that he gripped my thighs till they hurt or that he'd create new marks on my skin. Just that I needed him desperately.
Sam drove me faster against him. I wanted to tell him to stop hurrying me, but couldn't speak.
"Hello, Julie. I see you've missed me." Not Sam's voice.
