Chapter 9: Unwelcome Surprise
The fire in the suite’s fireplace spat embers against the grate as Scott scrolled through the initial surveillance report on his encrypted tablet. He took a slow sip of bourbon, the ice clicking softly in the heavy crystal glass. “Team’s in place,” he said, his voice a low rumble that vibrated in the spacious room. “They’re watching his apartment, his gym, the shitty bar he likes.”
Alyssa stood by the window, the city lights blurring through the fogged glass. She hugged herself, the soft cotton of her shirt doing nothing to ward off the chill that had little to do with the temperature. “And if he just… gets over it? Like he usually does?”
“Then we all move on with our lives.” Scott’s eyes never left the screen. “But he’s not posting on social, not calling his buddies to brag. He’s sitting in the dark, drinking cheap vodka and reading gun forums on the deep web. That’s not getting over it.”
She turned, her hazel eyes wide. “Gun forums?”
“The specific search terms are concerning.” He set the tablet down with finality. “If he buys a firearm, that’s phase one. If he then searches for your address or my corporate offices, that’s phase two.” He finished his drink. “Phase three is a permanent solution.”
Alyssa’s breath hitched, the memory of Chad’s smug enjoyment flashing behind her eyes. “You’d kill him.”
“I’d erase a problem.” Scott stood, closing the distance between them in a few silent strides. He cupped her face, his thumb brushing her cheekbone. “You’re not a problem. You’re the reason the problem exists.” His gaze was unflinching. “This is what I do. I assess threats. I neutralize them.”
She leaned into his touch, the warmth of his hand a stark contrast to the cold dread in her stomach. “I brought this here.”
“We did,” he corrected, his voice softening just for her. “Together. So we handle it together. You trust me?”
She looked past him, at the fire, at the shadows their game in the living room had cast. “Yes.”
“Good.” He kissed her forehead, a brief, possessive stamp. “Then let me work.”
He released her face and stepped back, his gaze analytical. “Go get dressed,” he said, the command cutting through the heavy silence. “In that little black thing from the boutique, the one with the neckline.”
Alyssa blinked, the shift so abrupt her thoughts scattered. “What? Now?”
“Your sexiest outfit.” He moved to the minibar, pouring another finger of bourdon without looking at her. “Then go downstairs to the hotel bar.” His voice was flat, instructional. “Let some guy—whoever you’re attracted to—let him pick you up.”
She stood frozen, the warmth from his hand now a phantom imprint on her skin. “Scott, what are you talking about?” The request felt disconnected from everything—the threat, the surveillance, the cold strategy.
“You can go as far as you want with him.” He finally turned, his expression unreadable in the firelight. “I’ll meet you downstairs sometime soon.”
“Why?” The word came out a whisper, tangled in confusion and a sharp, unwelcome thrill.
“Because I said so.” He took a slow drink, watching her over the rim of the glass. “Because after what we did, you need to prove you’re still mine to give away.” The fire cracked, emphasizing the quiet. “So go be given.”
The words hung in the air, cold and deliberate, but Alyssa held his gaze without flinching. She knew this game, its cruel edges and hidden safeties. So she simply turned and walked to the bedroom, the plush carpet swallowing her footsteps.
In the silent closet, her fingers brushed the sleek black fabric of the dress he’d bought her. She slipped it on, the material whispering against her skin, and she didn’t bother with a bra. A faint, private smile touched her lips because she trusted him completely—he wouldn’t actually give her away, not for real.
Downstairs, the hotel bar hummed with low conversations and the clink of glass. Alyssa slid onto a stool, the cool leather of the seat a shock against her thighs. “Gin and tonic, please,” she said, her voice steady.
Upstairs, Scott’s fingers flew over a laptop, bypassing the hotel’s firewall with practiced ease. Monitoring a kid like Chad was barely work; his team would handle anything that bubbled up. His screen split, one half showing Chad’s dim apartment, the other flooding with a crisp feed from the bar’s ceiling camera.
He zoomed in on Alyssa as she took her first sip, the crystal glass gleaming in the moody light. A man in a tailored suit, his smile too easy, approached her left side. “That looks lonely,” he said, nodding at her drink.
“It’s just a drink,” Alyssa replied, her tone flat, but she didn’t turn away. Scott watched, his own breath still, as the stranger leaned closer, saying something lost to the audio static. Alyssa’s laugh was a short, polite sound that didn’t reach her eyes.
The man’s hand settled on the bar near her elbow, a possessive gesture. Scott’s jaw tightened, his focus narrowing to that point of contact. On screen, Alyssa shifted subtly, creating an inch of distance, her hazel eyes flicking toward a ceiling corner as if she sensed the lens.
On screen, Alyssa shifted subtly, creating an inch of distance, her hazel eyes flicking toward a ceiling corner as if she sensed the lens. The man, undeterred, was quite charming and made Alyssa laugh with a story about a misguided client and a missing flock of ceramic garden flamingos. He asked her to dance and she agreed, letting him guide her from the stool toward the small, dimly lit space where a slow jazz number was playing.
Upstairs in the hotel suite, Scott watches the security feed, his knuckles pale around the glass. The man, his back to the camera, was whispering into Alyssa's ear, his lips nearly brushing her skin. She was looking up at him, laughs a bright, hollow sound that made Scott’s stomach tighten, his hand slide down her back until one hand cups, her ass, the black fabric tightening under his palm.
She leaned into him, her body a fluid curve against his suit,. The music swelled. Scott didn’t blink, the feed reflecting in his unreadable eyes as the man’s other hand crept higher on her rib cage. Alyssa’s own hands rested lightly on his shoulders, not pulling him closer, not pushing him away, a perfect, agonizing neutrality.
His hand traveled higher up her rib cage, the pressure firm through the thin silk, and came to rest against the full curve of her breast. She drew a sharp, quiet breath, her eyes lifting to his as he leaned down. Scott had given her permission to go as far as she wanted, but the boundary was a phantom line she was still searching for in the dark.
She parted her lips and he kissed her, a deep, exploring claim that tasted of champagne and arrogance. His thumb ran slowly over her nipple, which hardened instantly against the slick fabric, and a small, traitorous sound caught in her throat. “Let’s find some privacy,” he murmured against her mouth, already guiding her by the hip away from the fading music toward a much darker corner near the restrooms.
Upstairs, the ping of an encrypted message flashed on Scott’s screen, overlaying the video feed. Subject’s digital activity has normalized. No further threats detected. Current consumption is exclusively adult content, genre-specific. Scott’s eyes flicked from the text back to the feed, where the man was now crowding Alyssa against a shadowed wall. The genre detail—step-dad, daughter porn—registered as a bland data point, another pattern from a pathetic man.
He watched, utterly still, as the stranger kissed Alyssa deeper, one hand cradling her face while the other worked insistently under the silken hem of her dress. The bourbon in Scott’s glass had gone warm, forgotten. Her hands were no longer neutral; they were tangled in the man’s hair, pulling him closer, and the high, tight knot of jealousy in Scott’s chest melted into a different, hotter understanding.
This was her answer. This was how far she wanted to go. In the blue glow of the monitor, a slow, approving smile touched his lips just as the security feed, from its elevated angle, showed the man leading her into a dim service alcove and the video dissolved into synthetic, pixelated static
The static hissed, a flatline of visual noise. Scott didn’t move, his smile fixed, as his fingers tapped a rapid sequence on the laptop’s trackpad. He bypassed the dead hotel feed entirely, pulling up a different, crystal-clear source from a proprietary camera his team had embedded in the alcove’s smoke detector during the suite’s security sweep.
The new angle was intimate,居高临下. He watched the stranger’s hands, large and impatient, push the silk of her dress up past her hips. Alyssa’s head was turned toward the lens, her cheek pressed against the cool wall, eyes wide open and unblinking. “Just like that,” the man mumbled, his voice thick, breath fogging the glossy paint beside her face.
Scott leaned back, the leather chair creaking, and authorized the ongoing protocol with a two-key command. His team would continue to do full surveillance on Chad for another few weeks just in case, a low-priority background hum. He switched the cameras and continued to watch Alyssa and the stranger, his own breathing syncing with the rhythm on the screen.
The man was fumbling with his belt now, the metallic clink distinct through the audio feed. Alyssa said nothing, but her hand came up, not to stop him, but to brace against the wall, her fingers splaying white against the burgundy wallpaper. Scott zoomed the frame in tighter, capturing the exact moment her hazel eyes, glazed and distant, suddenly snapped into sharp, knowing focus.
She was looking directly into the hidden lens. A faint, almost imperceptible curve touched her parted lips, a silent communication meant only for him. Then she closed her eyes and let her head fall back, a surrender that was entirely a performance. “Wait,” she breathed, the word swallowed by the stranger’s mouth.
He froze, his breath hot and ragged against her neck. “What?” he mumbled, his fingers tightening on her hipbone.
Alyssa didn’t answer with words. She slid her hand down between them, her touch firm and deliberate through the expensive wool of his trousers. He shuddered, a sharp inhale cutting through the quiet hum of the distant bar. His grip loosened, yielding.
She applied gentle pressure, guiding him back a half-step from the wall, the space allowing her to sink gracefully to her knees on the patterned carpet. The cool, dusty floor bit through the silk of her dress. She looked up, her gaze traveling the length of his torso before settling, her expression unreadable.
He stared down, his earlier confidence fraying into naked anticipation. “Jesus,” he whispered, more a prayer than a curse.
Alyssa worked his zipper, the sound loud in the confined space. Her movements were smooth, practiced, but devoid of the performative eagerness he was used to. This was something else. Her fingernails scraped lightly as she took him in her hand, cool against his heated skin. He was already fully hard, straining.
She paused, letting him feel her stillness, the control in her grip. Then, without breaking eye contact, she lowered her head. The first touch of her tongue was a slow, deliberate stripe from base to tip, a clinical survey. He groaned, his head thudding back against the wall.
But she didn't take him in fully. Not yet. She held him there, at the threshold, her lips a breath away. The wet heat of her mouth hovered, a maddening promise. His entire body tensed, a coiled spring. Upstairs, Scott watched, the phone screen glowing in his darkened suite, his own breath held in sync with the man’s agony. Alyssa closed her eyes, then finally took him into her mouth, deep and slow. The sound he made was pure relief.
The sound he made was pure relief, a choked-off sigh that evaporated into the alcove’s musty air. His fingers knotted in her wavy brown hair, not guiding but claiming, his hips beginning a shallow, urgent rhythm against her mouth. She allowed it, her mind partitioning itself, one part calculating the pressure of his grip and another floating somewhere near the ceiling smoke detector.
Scott watched the feed, his thumb absently tracing the edge of his phone. He was already moving, a shadow detaching itself from a corner booth in the main bar, his drink left sweating on a napkin.
In the alcove, the man tugged her hair, pulling her off him with a wet sound. “Up,” he grunted, his voice slurry with gin and want. Before she could comply, his hands were under her arms, hauling her to her feet as if she weighed nothing.
He spun her, her dress twisting, and pushed her firm stomach against the wall. “Wait,” Alyssa said, the word muffled by plaster, but his hand was already clamping over her mouth, the taste of his skin and salt flooding her senses.
She felt him fumble, then the blunt, insistent pressure of him against her. “No,” she tried to say, but his palm smothered it into a hum. His other hand groped roughly over her hip, gathering the silk.
His other hand groped roughly over her hip, gathering the silk. The cold, textured wall pressed against her cheek, and she could feel the sharp corner of a framed hotel notice digging into her shoulder blade. “Just stay there,” he mumbled, his voice all breath and heat against her ear, one hand still sealed over her lips.
Alyssa’s mind, which had been floating, snapped back into the prison of her body with a jolt. She drove her elbow backward, a sharp, short blow that caught him solidly in the ribs. He grunted, the sound pained and surprised, and his grip on her mouth loosened for a single, crucial second. “Scott!” The name wasn’t a scream, but a hissed, definitive command into the alcove’s shadows.
The man froze, his body going rigid against her back. “What did you say?” he whispered, the fantasy evaporating as the reality of another man’s name hung in the air.
Before he could process it, a new pressure intruded—not him, but something thin and sharp against her spine through the silk. It was a folded piece of cardstock, a list of room service items pinned between her skin and the wall by his frantic hand. He held her there, his cock in his other hand, the head of it a blunt, insistent pressure at the entrance to her pussy. Alyssa strained against him, her muscles corded, struggling to stop it, to arch away, but his weight was complete.
Her eyes, wide in the dim light, reflected the emergency exit sign’s faint glow with shock, but not fear. She went utterly still, a calculated stillness, her breath coming in short, quiet puffs that fogged the burgundy wallpaper. The man trembled, poised on a threshold he no longer understood, every nerve screaming to push forward into that heat.
“I wouldn’t,” Scott’s voice came from the alcove entrance, calm and terribly close. The man jerked, his whole body flinching, and Alyssa felt him soften and retreat from her in the same instant of pure, animal recognition. Scott didn’t look at the stranger; his eyes were on Alyssa’s reflected gaze in a polished brass sconce, seeing the shock there, and the absolute, waiting trust beneath it.
The man’s head swiveled, his breathing still ragged. “The hell?” he managed, his voice cracking as he clumsily tried to rearrange himself. He squared his shoulders, a pathetic attempt at composure as he looked at Scott, who hadn’t moved from the entrance. “You can wait your turn, buddy.”
Scott’s smile was a cold, thin line. He took one silent step into the alcove, and the space seemed to shrink, the air thickening. “You’ve misunderstood the situation.”
“I don’t think I have.” The man puffed out his chest, emboldened by gin and bruised ego. “Portman here was just getting started.” He used the fake name she’d given him, the error underlining his complete ignorance.
“It’s nobody’s turn with Alyssa.” Scott’s voice was conversational, almost light, but it carried a finality that froze the dust in the air. He finally looked away from Alyssa’s reflection and directly at the stranger. “It’s her turn. From now on.”
The man blinked, the simplistic words not computing through his arousal and anger. He opened his mouth to retort, but Scott closed the remaining distance in a smooth, terrifying motion. He didn’t throw a punch; he simply placed a firm hand on the man’s shoulder, his thumb pressing deep into the nerve cluster above the collarbone.
A gasp, sharp and pained, escaped the man’s lips as his arm went numb. “Walk out to the lobby,” Scott said, his tone suggesting a pleasant alternative to something far worse. “Get in a cab. Forget your drink, forget this floor, forget her face.”
He released the pressure, and the man stumbled back, clutching his shoulder, his bravado dissolving into wheezing panic. He looked once at Alyssa, who hadn’t moved from the wall, her expression now unreadable marble, then scrambled past Scott and vanished into the glow of the hallway.
The silence he left behind was profound, broken only by the distant jazz bassline. Scott turned to Alyssa.
Scott turned to Alyssa.
He didn’t speak. The air between them, thick with the stranger’s cheap cologne and the sharp tang of adrenaline, seemed to vibrate. He reached out and his thumb brushed her bottom lip, wiping away a faint smudge of something that wasn’t hers. Alyssa’s breath hitched, a tiny, fractured sound in the quiet. She looked from his face to his hand, her hazel eyes wide and liquid in the exit sign’s glow.
“You let him,” Scott said, the words not an accusation but a flat observation. “You kneeled.”
“You told me to be given away.” Her voice was steadier than she felt.
“I told you to be mine to give.” He cupped her jaw, his grip firm, forcing her gaze to hold his. “You looked into the camera. You smiled for me while his hands were on you.”
A shudder ran through her, part shame, part pure electric thrill. “I was.”
He stepped closer, erasing the last of the cold space the stranger had occupied. His other hand found the bunched silk at her hips, the fabric still twisted from the frantic grappling. “And you fought him. At the end. You said my name.”
“I didn’t want him.” The declaration was simple, absolute.
Scott’s eyes darkened, the analytical coolness from upstairs gone, replaced by something raw and proprietary. He leaned in, his mouth hovering a breath from hers. “Then show me what you do want.”
He kissed her, but it wasn’t like before. This was a reclamation, deep and searching, tasting the ghost of another man’s kiss and erasing it. Alyssa melted into it, her hands flying up to tangle in his hair, pulling him closer with a desperation that surprised them both. The wall was cold against her back, his body a furnace against her front.
When he broke the kiss, they were both breathing hard. His eyes scanned her face, reading the wreckage and the want. Then, a sharp, almost cruel intelligence flashed in them. He was remembering it all, reconstructing it: the stranger’s hands on her hips, the push against the wall, the moment of her resistance.
Abruptly, he turned Alyssa around, her dress still bunched up around her waist from the earlier struggle. He pressed her front against the same cool, burgundy wallpaper, his body covering hers completely. The textured surface was familiar against her cheek now, a stage for a different scene.