In Too Deep, Book 3, Part 1

 [image: VitalikRadko]

Okay, folks, a little late, and a little short, but I couldn't hold onto this book any longer. You've all be very patient. Full disclosure, because I'm that kind of guy, this story is not done. I've got about 18k words written. The last two books were about 25k, but this one's probably going to run a little longer, based on what I've got planned.

As I wrote at the beginning of the last story, I really am not a fan of releasing stories before they're done (at least a first rough draft), because often times, I go back and tweak details from earlier chapters to match and map to the things that come later. I try to plan, but I also enjoy some nice foreshadowing for those looking for it. That said, this first chapter is safe enough, and should give everyone a taste for what's to come.

Also, I don't even have a cover (as you can see with me reusing an image from the sneak peek post).

I will do my damndest to get the story done as quickly as possible, and get you another nibble on Friday, but no promises. Thank you all for being the patient rockstars that you are.

Without further ado...

Chapter 19: Ink

I carefully applied the ink, tracing it along Amanda’s lower back, following the swirls and eddies of her existing tattoo. It reminded me of my younger years. I used to love painting and art. Even thought—very briefly—of going to school for it. “How often do you have to do this?” I asked.

The ink that I was applying was barely darker than the tattoo itself, just wetter looking.

“Once a week. It should last up to three, but it’ll start to fade.”

“Julia usually do it?”

Despite my mixed feelings for Amanda’s handler, I still felt a twinge in my gut just mentioning her name. Part of that had to do with the memory of her lips wrapped around my cock. Part of it was the thought of watching her hands delicately trace my wife’s lower back.

“Yeah. Only Julia. She seemed to delight in marking me.”

“For someone whose job it is to keep you alive, she sure doesn’t seem to like you. Why?”

“It’s an excellent question. One that I’ve been wrestling with a lot lately. Why did she involve you—a civilian— so heavily in this operation? There have been some other red flags, too, ones that I’ve been ignoring, too wrapped up in… the rest of the case.”

In her identity as Raven, she didn’t need to say. In her cover as a stripper and a whore and the girlfriend to the still at-large Nikolai Kozlov.

“Like, I get why she sent you the video, but it seems like a risky thing to do, right? And then she brought you to the apartment, just as the case was close to the end, and things got… complicated after that.”

This was my own red flag. As I finished the last point on the beak of the raven, I said, “Now there’s a statement that feels good to hear.”

My work completed, I carefully capped the applicator. Then I heaved a sigh as I unkinked my shoulders and sat back. I said, “Sorry that I’m just a complication in your plan.”

Amanda started to twist towards me, but stopped. The ink took an hour to dry, and she was immobilized for most of that. “That came out wrong. You were never just a complication—”

“But I wasn’t much of a consideration, either. Why, Amanda? What’s so important about this case that made you justify becoming a whore?”

Amanda winced, but didn’t back down. Even lying as she was, head resting on the sofa, naked other than for a black thong, she was poised and in control. As upset as I was with her, that was hot as hell.

“This is bigger than a lab for some designer drug, or a local drug distributor. There is more behind Nick—Nikolai Kozlov—and his operation. He’s just the speartip of something new and bigger. There will be more Kozlovs and more jazz epidemics. I want to shut all of it down. I want to dig it out by the roots.”

There was fire in her voice. Her body tensed and her skin tightened. Then she saw me again, sitting there, my own face no doubt resembling a thundercloud, and my shoulders slumped.

She said, “And yet none of that justifies any of what I did. I know I’ll be earning back your trust for the rest of my life, but I’m ready to do that.”

She reached out for my hand. I looked from her outstretched palm, up to meet her gaze, and then back to her palm. I made no move to take it.

“Are you sure about that?”

She did not drop her hand. Looking me dead in the eye, she said, “Having second thoughts already?”

I crossed my arms. “Answer the question.”

She stared me down for a number of heartbeats. 

Then, she blinked. “David, I’m always gonna want you. Moreso now than ever. At this very moment it feels like you’re too far away. You’re both under my skin and not close enough.” She paused for effect. “Of course I’m sure.”

I pursed my lips for a moment. She continued to hold her hand out to me.

“Have you considered,” I said, “that your determination to set things right with me might also be partially driving your compulsion to crack the case-within-a-case that no one else seems to see?”

She cocked her head in that way she had when analyzing fresh data. Knowing her as I did, the fact that she didn’t immediately dismiss the question told me she had likely already considered it herself.

She sighed and dropped her hand. “That thought has occurred to me, yes. I don’t know. Maybe getting to the bottom of this whole thing, bringing in every last one of the motherfuckers who made it feel necessary to gradually compromise my values and betray you and us over and over again might help right the scales. You know. Make all of this, everything I’ve put us both through, count for something.”

I nodded. “Fair enough. And of course I'm having second thoughts. And third thoughts. And sixty-fifth thoughts. Jesus Christ, you say you know what you did and yeah, you feel awful about it—and I don’t doubt that.

“But stop and think for a minute, see it from my point of view. For days at a time I was tortured by all these fucked up internal dialogues and crippling doubt. I questioned my own sanity at a couple of points.”

It was her turn to slump, her body sinking into the sofa. She averted her eyes and blinked several times, then swallowed hard.

I went on before I lost my nerve. “So you’re damned right you’re gonna need to reassure me for a good long while. One minute, I’m fine, and the next, I’m not.”

And then I reached out my hand for hers. “So you’re stuck with me. No place else I can get all that coming reassurance. But taking the rest of your life? Nah. I intend to make sure you live a good, loooooooong time, far longer than the time it will take to get my trust all the way back.”

She brightened at my words, and reached out her hand and took mine, entwining our fingers. I wasn’t ready to completely forgive her, but it was nice to understand a little more what was going on in her head, and just as importantly, to let her know what was going on in mine. And that was likely how it was going to go, at least for a while. Communicating constantly. Relentless checking in. Ruthless honesty. Rebuilding our trust and deepening our bond one conversation, hell, at times one second at a time.

“You know,” I said, glancing at the drying tattoo on her girlspot. “I think the tattoo is really sexy.”

She actually flushed. “Me too,” she whispered. “Don’t tell the old me.”

My dick hardened. This was the epitome of my contradiction—I was upset at her for what she’d done, yet so profoundly turned on by it.

“You always hated women who got tattoos there,” I pointed out.

“I did, yeah. I’ve reconsidered a lot of things lately. My outlook on life is a lot less black-and-white these days.”

“That’s quite an understatement.”

“It actually started with you, believe it or not.” She squeezed my hand. “I never intended to fall in love, and you helped me realize that I can’t plan for everything in life.” She was quick to add, “Not that I’m justifying any of what I’ve done because of you.”

“I know, I know.” I moved up to sit by her head, stroking her silky, dark hair. “So tell me about the first man you… fucked.” A hit of adrenaline rippled through me at the word. “Was he that client that you went home with?”

“No.” From her angle, she couldn’t quite see me, although she could raise up onto her elbows and trace her hands along the seat of my pants. “He worked at the Gold Club. You saw him. Or part of him in that video.”

“The hiring manager,” I said.

Amanda laughed. “Not his official title, but maybe an unofficial one. All the dancers go through Mark.”

I wondered if the other agent undercover, Misty/Mia Moore, had to as well. “They all slept with him?”

“They all sucked his dick.” She was so matter-of-fact about it. “I took things further.“

“Just like that?” I asked.

“No, not quite. There was a time when I thought that I could get away without sleeping with anyone. Pretty naive, in retrospect.”

“Tell me how it happened.” I was torn between horror and arousal, but the more comfortable I got with what she’d done, the more things tipped in the direction of excitement. “I… I want to know.”

Amanda twisted just enough to look me in the eyes. I smiled down at her, stroking her cheek. I could see her smile in return, even from this awkward angle. It wasn’t a cruel one, but one of relief and more than a little delight. Still smiling, she started to work my pants open. My cock had only stiffened.

“For the first month, I did everything that I could to get his attention without… crossing any lines. When I was dancing and he was there, I paid special attention to him. When he wasn’t, I danced even harder because I knew there were cameras. I danced my ass off. When I wasn’t in the club, I was in a private gym we had, practicing even harder. When I was working, I tried flirting. I offered him dances, but none of it worked.”

She took a deep breath, blew it out teasingly along my cock, then looked me in the eye, and continued. 

“We knew early on that… Kozlov was a voyeur,” she said. I noted how she stumbled over his name, like she had to retrain herself from calling him Nick. “It wasn’t a secret, and all the girls there knew how he liked to watch. Even that video that you saw was for him. So I knew that the best way to catch his eye was to perform.”

She wrapped her hand around my cock and started pumping me, resting her cheek on my thigh. I gently stroked her hair.

“And I realized, after a week of getting nowhere, what kind of performance it needed to be.”

“And here’s where you could have drawn a line,” I said. “Like Mia.”

Amanda nodded. “I could have. A huge part of me should have. But let’s be clear here, the only lines Mia was drawing were made of white powder. She’s no innocent, here. If anything, she helped normalize everything that followed. She was already turning tricks when I got there. I knew that to capture the attention of the boss, I needed to be splashy.”

I reeled from the revelation. What kind of operation was this?!

“I didn’t have the best shifts at the time, but that worked out for me. It was a Monday night when I was working until closing. It was slow, so we were able to close down a little before 4 am. Mark, the manager, was closing up the register. Everyone else had gone home. I waited for him, sitting on the stage, knowing that the cameras were still on and that hopefully Kozlov would eventually watch.”

“You… seduced Mark,” I said. My mouth was dry and my cock was hard in her hands. She seemed to take comfort in that, squeezing me, leaning forward to nuzzle me, a playful lick, and a sigh along the wet trail she left on my cock. 

“Yes. I remember calling over to him. Telling him that I was still grateful for getting me the job, and that I… wanted to give him an extra special thanks.”

I wasn’t angry with her. I could have been. Many probably would think that I should have been. That feeling of betrayal was still there. It would be for a long time. But right now, as she described the moment when she turned into an adulteress, I was literally shaking with excitement. 

“What…?” I stopped myself, embarrassed by what I was about to ask.

“Hm?”

“Nevermind.”

“No, what, David? You can ask me anything.”

She was right. If I couldn’t be honest and open, how could I expect this to work? “I was just wondering… what were you wearing?”

She beamed at me. “I wore this short tennis skirt and a half shirt that hung off one shoulder. Oh, and a red bra.”

I swallowed hard. “No panties?”

“I knew what I needed to do, and I had to make sure that I didn’t chicken out.” Amanda shifted some in my lap, wrapping her lips around my cock and swirling my dick once. My corresponding sharp intake of breath only seemed to delight her further. “Going commando felt so wrong, yet also so…” She searched for the right word. I helped.

“So different than who you thought you were,” I said. “More like something Raven did.”

“Yes!” she said.

“So how did you do it?”

“It was pretty easy. Mark wasn’t exactly resistant to being seduced. I knew where the cameras were positioned, though, and the hardest part was to perform for them without ever looking at them.”

“Sounds like a pornstar problem,” I said. Even in the moment, I wondered what Ty would think of this. Would he say, ‘You have a pornstar for a wife!’ “Keep going.”

Amanda sucked my dick a few more times, getting me nice and wet, before returning to her slippery handjob. “We kissed a lot. I took his hand in mine and pulled it under my skirt. He took the hint and started fingering me.”

My stomach lurched at the intimacy of the kissing. Amanda didn’t seem to notice. I swelled in her capable hands. She was in the zone,, reliving that moment.

“I pulled my top off and opened my bra. He started sucking my nipples, nibbling on them. It hurt, but… I liked it. When I told him that I did, he started to get even more rough.”

“Oh, Amanda,” I groaned, feeling my balls tighten. I took a deep breath, staving off the inevitable. She took the hint, slowing her handjob.

“Are you sure you want to hear this?” she asked.

I appreciated that she checked in. 

“Are you sure you’re okay telling it?”

She didn’t hesitate. “‘No secrets.’ Meant it. ‘Earning trust.’ Meant that.”

“In that case, yes, I do. Tell me.”

“Right. So he pulled out a condom. It’s crazy, I know, because I knew where this was going to end, but seeing him tear open that foil, smelling the spermicide, watching him roll it down his thick cock… it made it all so real.” Her hand had basically stopped at the base of my dick. “And I wanted it, David. I’m so sorry, but I was so fucking turned on. I climbed up onto the stage and spread my legs. He grabbed my ankles, held them high, and drove into me hard. I flopped back on the stage, grabbing the stripper pole, and held on as he fucked me.”

She blinked up at me. I stroked her hair. Her skin was burning up. “It turns you on,” I said. “Thinking about fucking your manager.”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Touch yourself,” I ordered.

Her turn to gasp.

“Remember, you said it was going to be different,” I reminded. “Let’s make this ours.”

I could not recall her ever giving me a wider smile.

It took some careful shifting not to smudge the drying ink, but she got her free hand beneath her, down between her legs, as she started to pump me.

“The sex was exciting, but you know what turned me on more than anything else?” She answered her own question. “Knowing that there were cameras. Knowing that I had an audience. By that time, I was used to stripping, and went back to the apartment every night turned on by the attention. This took things even further.”

I noted how she called her place ‘the apartment,’ rather than ‘home.’ This, our time together, was our true home.

This confession actually aligned with the Amanda I’d fallen for. The first time I really noticed her was during a formal debate in one of our classes. I remember how composed she was, how confident. That confidence was hot as hell, and she seemed to revel in all that attention.

“He ended up fucking me bent over the stage, squeezing my ass so hard that I swear he left an impression the next day. I could feel him coming in the condom and it set me on fire. I screamed, backing into him hard enough that he actually fell back on his ass with a curse. I crawled over to him, ripped the condom off, and lapped up all that come.”

“Jesus,” I groaned.

Amanda looked up at me as she jerked me off. No more holding off. She finished me, and I spurted all over my shirt tails.

“The next day, Nikolai Kozlov looked at me differently. I had my in.”

With my excitement cooling on my stomach, the angst was back, although it was less powerful than the last few weeks. After all, I’d watched her get DP’ed by two dicks.

“So by my count, that’s three guys you were with—Kozlov, Mark, and that first rich fuck you had a threesome with. Leaves nine more men in about six weeks.”

“Yeah,” Amanda admitted. “That sounds bad.”

It did. And that’s all I should have thought, but it wasn’t. “It also turns me on. Sorry.”

“Hey, don’t apologize, David. Are you kidding me? And the number could have been much higher, but I was selective because I knew that I could be. Unless Nick ordered me to fuck someone.”

He was ‘Nick’ again. “He liked doing that.”

“Yes. He gets off on control as much as he does on watching.”

“Maybe we can use that to our advantage,” I offered.

“I was thinking the same thing, but… you’d be okay with that? You know what that would mean.”

Sex with other men, for another man. I actually started to get hard again at the idea. “I do,” I said. I slipped off the sofa. “Are you okay with it?”

She watched me, her head propped up under her elbow. “I can be. And Baby,” she said as she leaned forward and nuzzled my nose with the tip of her own, “I am gonna make this so good for you.”

A banging came from the door that led into the bedroom, followed shortly by Ty’s booming voice. “You two done fucking in there or whatever?”

“No,” we said in unison, then started laughing.

“Well, hurry up. I’ve got some ideas and am sure as shit not going to yell through the door.”

We’d needed a safe place to talk, and Ty’s place was the most convenient and least conspicuous. 

I looked down at Amanda’s naked form, then at the mess that was my shirt. “Give us a second.”

It was good to laugh together again.