“Wow. You must be a lousy fuck.”
His hands balled into fists so tight, his knuckles bled white. “How about we play a new game where you don’t talk for the rest of the evening.”
“Ooo, did I touch a nerve there?”
That jab nudged Agent Reyes closer to that ninth shot he’d pre-poured. He eyed the finger-thick line of whiskey sitting innocently in his glass as if it was talking to him, goading him into caving. Eventually, that whiskey voice won, and Reyes dumped the regret down his throat like a fucking champ.
No wince. Not even a lip twitch.
“All right.” He cleared his throat. “You’re going to bed.” He passed by me, forcing back the covers on my tidied bed, and fluffed the pillow like he was trying to murder it.
“Well, now you contradict yourself. Telling me I’m not a child, and then ordering me around like one. So which is it? Am I a child or am I your jailbird?”
He spared me a blistering glance over his shoulder. “Right now, you’re a pain in my ass.” He pointed down at my now disheveled bed. “Get in.”
“But I’m not tired, sir.”
The cut of Agent Reyes' eyes became so jagged, my confidence was nearly punctured. “Why the fuck are you suddenly calling me ‘sir’?”
The tail end of my lips curved up. “I was taught to respect my elders.”
The dominance in his eyes sharpened to a fine, daggered point intended to punish. “In. Now.”
“I never finished my drink.” I gestured to my glass on the nightstand, half-filled with amber liquid and sweating down the sides. Agent Reyes’ focus fell to it, and with a pluck of my puppeteer ropes, he reached for and downed the drink in one swallow.
Fucking finally.
“There. Now sleep. We’ve got an early morning.”
Agent Reyes set the empty glass down with a thud, clearing a drop of escaped alcohol down his lip with a brief swipe of his pink tongue. He squeezed his eyes shut tight, rocking back and forth on his feet like we were on a boat rather than in a hotel room. His shoulders sank as he dropped his head back, his Adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed down the realization that he was, in fact, drunk.
And I smiled.
It took about a half hour longer than I hoped it might, but at long last, Agent Reyes was sloshed. He almost made it too easy. Lengthy, sure. But way, way too easy.
From the corner of my eye, I watched him slump over onto his bed, not even bothering to kick off his shoes. His face was worn and his eyes were shut, and he groaned something fierce as he settled into the mattress. The day's exhaustion sunk him into the bed, and in ten seconds flat, his breathing fell even and deep.
“Reyes?” I tried, testing the waters.
No response.
Dead asleep. Not even a peep of a snore.
“Finally,” I exclaimed, scooching off of the bed and beelining it for the door. Agent Reyes made sure to put an extra lock in place, but what he didn’t know is that I’d spent the better half of my teenage years sneaking out of locked bedroom doors.
Fingering through my hair, I touched the blunt end of the bobby pin I always kept shelved behind my ear. I fixed the pin into the lock and waited for that give between the fastener and deadbolt.
“There… we… go!” Triumph rolled my posture upright as the lock twisted along with a victorious smile on my lips.
I stood straight, undoing the rest of the hotel-implemented locks and swinging the door open.
A flash of brown eyes and tousled hair met me on the other side. He didn’t even bother a hello as the mouth he’d use the pleasantry for was on mine immediately.
He crashed through the door, enveloping all of me in his arms and spicy cologne. His smell firecrackered up my nose until my brain was suffocating in his scent, and I locked my arms around his neck, hoping to drown in his field of fire-roasted cinnamon.
We stumbled back together into the hotel room, hands groping and lips dominating.
“I think you took your time on purpose, Red.” His rumble tickled my lips.