Unknown 9 by Layton Green (each kindness read aloud txt) 📕

There were times when Dr. Corwin needed clever cocktails and a piano in the corner—and there were times like these, when he needed to disappear with a cold beer inside a rowdy watering hole.

He picked his way through the crowd to a stool at the end of the bar. After a few contented swigs of his lager, someone rested a hand on his shoulder. Even before he saw her face, he recognized a rose-scented perfume that had haunted more lonely nights and erotic dreams over the last year than he cared to admit.

“Ana!” he said, almost having to shout to be heard. “What the devil are you doing here?”

“I live in New York, remember?” She leaned down to purr in his ear. “Miss me?”

A ruby pendant nestled in the neckline of her velvet pantsuit drew attention to the olive-skinned curve of her breasts. Swallowing away his arousal, he reminded himself who she represented. “You took a chance coming here.”

“Some things in life are worth a risk. Do you plan on running to the Society to tell them?”

“That depends on why you came,” he said evenly. “And I see you’ve dropped the pretense.”

Ana glanced over her shoulder and took him by the hand. “A booth just opened up. Come.”

With her long brown hair swishing behind her, she carried a full glass of white wine deftly through the packed aisle, moving through the room like she owned it. They took the last vinyl booth before the swinging door that led to the kitchen. She pulled him into the seat next to her. Unless she had a listening device on her person, there was no way they could be overheard.

“You look stunning,” he said, “though you’re overdressed for the joint.”

“To be honest, I thought you’d go for the Belleclaire tonight.”

“So you’ve been keeping an eye on me. What a good little spy. Why’d you wait this long to approach me? Aren’t we supposed to be having a passionate affair?”

“I told them you’ve been rejecting my advances.”

He took a sip of beer and studied her face, trying to judge her intent. “They must think highly of my powers of self-restraint.”

“I also told them you don’t trust the situation yet.”

“Why haven’t you tested my resistance yourself?”

She swirled her wine for a long moment. “I . . . didn’t feel right about it.”

“You mean about being a whore for the cause?” he said softly.

Her gaze flew to meet his. “Actually, no. That wouldn’t bother me. At least . . . not in the past. It’s the cause itself . . .” She lowered her voice. “I’ve been asking myself some hard questions.”

“Forgive me if I’m less than convinced. But for the sake of conversation, why would you do such a thing?”

“Because of you.”

His mouth opened and then closed, swallowing the scornful response he had prepared.

“Some of the things you said in Cartagena,” she continued. “The kind of person I think you are, which is very different from the kind I know Hans to be.”

“I recall very clearly your conversation in the wine cellar. ‘Dr. Corwin doesn’t leave Cartagena—do you hear me?’ Hans said. ‘Understood,’ I believe you replied.”

She gasped. “You were there all along?”

He gave a little hand flourish.

“But how did you escape the city?” she asked. “You vanished like a ghost.”

“I never kiss and tell.”

A smile played at her lips. “I’ve never seen Hans so furious. You got the best of him, and he’ll never forget it.”

“I’ll never forget the attempts he made on my life.”

Her expression darkened. “He’s not someone you want to cross, James. He’s very capable and devoted to the cause.”

“As am I. Does one have to be a ruthless killer to have passion and loyalty?”

They locked gazes for a moment, and he could see in her eyes that she had been struggling with the same question.

“I admit I’m supposed to seduce you,” she said. “It was Hans’s idea from the start. By the way, we’re intimate now and again. I believe he’s in love with me. I thought you should know before . . .”

“Before what?”

“Before whatever happens next.”

Dr. Corwin’s hand tightened at his side. “And your feeling on the matter?”

“It’s the seventies,” she said lightly, though a shadow lurked behind her gaze. “Free love is in the air.”

“What about true love?”

“As elusive as ever.”

“Why are you here, Ana?”

“Because I can’t stop thinking about you.”

“Why should I believe that?”

“I don’t really care if you believe it. Whether you feel it is more important.”

“So what now? Do we begin a passionate affair with no trust on either side, playing a game for our observers, always watching to see if one of us is going to stab the other in the back?”

She took a sip of wine. “It’s a start.”

He laughed and took a long swig of beer.

“Swing by tonight,” she said. “I live in the West Village.”

“Hardly.”

“Your place?”

“Even funnier.”

“Then you pick,” she said coyly, curling her legs beneath her in the booth and reaching up to stroke his cheek. “Any random hotel or guesthouse you want.”

As a flush of warmth flowed through him, he watched her carefully and considered the offer, knowing he had little will to resist.

Though Dr. Corwin didn’t think it was possible, their lovemaking that night surpassed the last time. Her legs were even more impossibly long and smooth than he remembered, her tongue more warm and insistent, her cries of passion deep-throated and sustained.

When they finished, he sat up in bed with a cigarette, staring at the glow of the Empire State Building out of the window of their seedy Times Square hotel, wondering what happened when one skipped a mandatory Society meeting.

“You’re not much of a reporter,” he said, “but you’re a former fashion model with a high IQ, who took an early retirement.” He took the lift in her eyebrows as validation of his research. “I imagine the catwalk pays better than higher education.”

She turned to face him. “Does it now? Did you research that?”

“Do I really need to?”

“That depends on whether you think you’ve