Chapter 79

Rada Kuznetzov had long taken pride in her ability to remain alert and aware under even the most extreme of circumstances. As a pretty girl growing up in Russia, she’d known too many dangerous men and too many boys who aspired to be dangerous men to ever let her guard down. As an SSCS field agent in the Special Projects division, she’d had multiple occasions to use that learned alertness and situational awareness in the service of keeping her clients and herself safe. Even in situations where she’d been undercover and her cover had required her to appear carefree or careless, she’d never really let her guard down. Even on one particularly harrowing project when danger had come after she’d stayed awake for more than two days straight, Rada had handled the situation with the immediate resolve and cool menace required to keep things from going pear-shaped.

As such, she was disappointed to find herself fighting off a yawn as she, Prudence, Violet, and Sam took the short limo ride from the Loft in Lower Manhattan to Nick Coyle’s other residence near the Brooklyn waterfront in Vinegar Hill. She wasn’t even that tired. She was, if anything, pleasantly invigorated after the first night she and Pru had spent together in New York. It was, she decided, something about the way the sun refracted through the car’s window on this unseasonably warm September day.

“Long night?” Sam asked with a smirk from the facing seat.

Back at the Blue Rose, Sam danced as Cane Sugar and played at being a dominatrix, but it was largely an act. Rada was thoroughly unintimidated by her. “I imagine it was the same length as everyone else’s.”

Pru, who had been dozing at Rada’s side, giggled. “I think she’s talking about all the sex we were having.”

Rada gave a little grunt of acknowledgement. She had, of course, known what Sam was talking about. Before she could think of a cool retort, the yawn she’d been fighting escaped, killing any hope she had of holding onto the conversational upper hand. Instead, she said, “Actually, the hours flew by.”

Violet smirked. “‘Hours’ is right. You would think you two never had sex before.”

Pru sat up, eyes widening. “We hadn’t! Or, at least, I hadn’t. And Charity never had it with me before then ... obviously.” She shook her head. “I didn’t even think two girls could have sex - not without like tools or whatever.”

Violet’s eyes sparkled with amusement. “The word you’re looking for is ‘toys,’ dear.”

“Some of them are also tools ... or at least shaped like them,” Sam laughed and was joined by first Violet, then Prudence a moment later.

Rada gave her politest smile, but it felt tight. Before Sam had spoken, the SSCS agent had just been starting to contemplate how last night had changed the nature of her assignment, her job, and possibly even her life going forward. When she’d reported to Nick back in New Orleans, Rada had warned him that Prudence might have developed feelings for her. She’d known at the time that she had her own feelings to contend with, but they’d felt more manageable at the time. Now, she was less sure. She couldn’t help feeling that something inside her had changed profoundly during the time in which she’d held, touched, and been touched by Prudence Parrish last night.

On the other hand, she might just need the perspective of time. Rada hadn’t realized quite how tightly she’d let herself get wound while working undercover. Unsure of how anyone would feel about her once her subterfuge was revealed, she had declined all the opportunities presented to her to scratch the slowly-building itch of her own need for release.

It wasn’t the longest Rada had ever been celibate for the sake of an assignment, but it was the most tempted she could remember being to deciding that celibacy wasn’t required after all.

“I do hope we didn’t keep you two up all night. I tried to be quiet ... sometimes, when I remembered.” Prudence lowered her eyes. Rada suspected that any embarrassment Pru might feel was more about being impolite than it was about having begun her journey of “wanton harlotry” with such enthusiasm.

Sam smirked. “Worked out fine for me. I went looking for somewhere else to sleep and made a new friend.”

Violet made a dismissive gesture. “I just called Rosie and made her talk dirty to me until I drifted off. She says hello to both of you and, as you would probably expect, that either one of you is welcome to come back to New Orleans and lick her pussy until she moans like that too.”

That offer got a more genuine smile from Rada. Of all the women who worked at the Blue Rose, Rosie had made the most frequent and blatant passes at her by far. Of course, Rosie propositioned pretty much everyone she worked with, gay or straight, man or woman.

Prudence smiled. “Please tell Rosie that’s very sweet of her, but we’re going to be staying in New York for a while.”

“I bet if you took her up the other part of her offer, we’d be picking her up at the airport tonight,” said Sam drolly.

“We can’t tonight. We’re having sex with Nick,” said Prudence happily.

Violet’s frown was so faint and quick that Prudence wasn’t sure she’d really seen it until her former employer said, “You are? Are you sure that’s wise?”

Rada covered her own mouth with her hand to hide the smirk that appeared unbidden. Violet’s concern was as consistent as Rosie’s good-natured letchery. There was no limit to the amount of debauched behavior she would happily countenance and even sometimes partake in among the employees of the Blue Rose, but such activity with outsiders was held to a much higher standard.

Prudence leaned forward to pat the club owner on the knee. “Soft Mother, I’m barely eighteen years old. I got plenty of time to be wise when I’m older.”

Sam laughed. “Does Nick know about your plans or are you just going to show up and spring it on him?”

“He knows. We talked about it on his plane,” said Prudence.

Sam’s eyes swiveled to Rada. “Did you know this was the plan?”

Prudence took Rada’s hand and answered for her. “Sure, we talked about it. I really want my best friend there the first time I’m with a man and, even though I know how it all works, there’s a world of difference between knowing and seeing, isn’t there?”

For all practical purposes, that statement ended the conversation and allowed Rada to focus her attention out the window again. She’d been to New York before, but not this part of it. With its small, cozy-looking shops tucked up against highway overpasses and its uneven paving, this end of Jay Street in Brooklyn looked like the sort of place an SSCS client might invest in, but be unlikely to actually visit.

She’d had the same impression walking into the Loft. Aside from the communal areas, the whole place looked like the sort of aspirational apartment building that moderately successful New York professionals would spend an unwise percentage of their paychecks renting.

The tall glass and steel tower that was their destination rose high above the neighborhood’s shorter, squatter brick buildings like a giant middle finger to historic preservationists everywhere and sat atop a mostly-empty multi-level parking garage dug untold levels deep beneath where the driver parked next to the elevator.

As they were carried upwards, Prudence gave a happy little hop. “I’m so excited. I’ve never been to Brooklyn before.”

“Yesterday, you were excited because you’d never been to Manhattan,” Sam reminded her.

Prudence’s eyes grew wide and she tugged on Sam’s arm with both hands. “I know. I hadn’t been nowhere except Louisiana, Missouri, and Texas once when I was too little to remember. Now, I’ve been to Europe and Switzerland and New York and Brooklyn all in a couple of days. It’s so exciting!” She glanced at Rada. “You’ve been all over the world. Do new places ever stop being so exciting?”

Rada thought back. “The first time I left Russia for Jayanesia, it was very exciting and a little scary. New places are less scary now, but every one is a whole new set of circumstances, opportunities, and challenges. I’ve never been to Brooklyn before either.”

When the elevator doors opened on their assigned floor, Zola was waiting nearby and met them before they’d taken a half dozen steps. “Prudence, Rada, I’m glad you made it. Nick asked me to personally make sure that you two settled in all right.”

Sam made an exaggerated gesture of looking around. “I guess we don’t rate our own field agent today?”

The perfect and perfectly apologetic smile Zola gave Sam was Exhibit A of why Rada would never have made it as a factotum tracked field agent. If Sam had made that same comment to Rada, Rada would have at least briefly wanted to punch her in the face and, in that moment, her annoyance would undoubtedly show. But Zola didn’t miss a beat. “No one is assigned to you just yet, but I’ll be happy to provide someone if you’d like help moving in.”

Sam at least had the decency to look embarrassed. “No, that’s fine, I’m sure. Are our things here yet?”

“All of your luggage is in 20C and, Violet, yours is in 20D. We didn’t unpack for you in case the accommodations weren’t up to your specifications. The rooms are all made up, but there are plenty of others we could move you to if you have any special requests,” said Zola sweetly.

Sam looked unsure of what she should say, but Violet broke the tension by asking, “Are the walls thicker here than in the Loft?”

Zola smiled brightly. “Notably. The apartments are also architected to dampen sound between them. Your neighbors have to get really loud before you can hear them even if you’re standing in the back of a closet right next to the dividing wall. I helped test that myself.”

Sam smirked at Prudence, who looked at Zola. “What apartment are we in?”

“I currently have you two in 18A, but 18B is also ready if you would each like your own unit,” said Zola.

Prudence gave Rada a worried look. “Do you want your own place? I’ve really liked being roommates.”

Rada shook her head. “I’m sure there will be plenty of room for both of us in 18A. But, you may find there are things you want to do without me.”

Prudence took Rada’s hand and gave a firm shake of her head. “Come on. Let’s go see our room.”

Their “room” turned out to be an apartment more than twice the size of the one they’d used last night. It would have been a luxury unit anywhere in the world, but even in a less-than-fashionable New York neighborhood like Vinegar Hill, it would sell for millions of dollars before you priced in the incredible view.

Prudence stood at the window. “Is that the Brooklyn Bridge?”

Rada stood next to her and looked out over the East River. “The one in front is the Manhattan Bridge. The Brooklyn Bridge is behind it.”

Prudence slid an arm around Rada’s waist and snuggled in close. “We really are in New York, aren’t we?”

Rada chuckled. “We have been since yesterday.”

Prudence wrinkled her nose. “Well, yeah. I know. But that place just looked out onto a street. It could have still been in Baton Rouge for all we knew.”

Rada heard a wistful note in the younger woman’s voice. “You feeling homesick, Pru?”

Prudence scowled. “Heck no. All I ever really wanted was to get as far away from Mather Parish as I could. New York felt like the other side of the world.”

Unsure of what Pru wanted to hear, Rada said, “It is pretty far away - a lot farther than you’ve been before if you don’t count our quick trip to Geneva.”

“Geneva was cool and it was fun hanging out with Verity and Maddie,” Prudence said quietly, then added, “Would you teach me to speak Russian?”

Rada was accustomed to Pru’s abrupt changes of topic by now. “If you want to learn Russian, I might have to learn it with you. It’s been years since I spoke more than a few words of it. You speak some French, don’t you?”

“Un peu.” Prudence made a gesture of smallness with her thumb and forefinger. “If you wanted to learn it, I’d either have to learn it along with you or only talk about pencils and libraries and stuff.”

Zola had made herself silent and unseen somewhere behind them, but Rada hadn’t forgotten she was there. She called out, “Does Nick ever bring in language teachers? I know he’s got all kinds of people coming here to teach.”

“He just asked this morning if we could bring in a full-time Japanese tutor for a few months. I imagine he’d be amenable to other languages if people were interested,” said Zola evenly.

Prudence’s eyes widened. “Japan is super far away. Maybe we should learn that.”

“I learned some on Jayanesia when I lived there - not enough to be rated for field work, but enough to make myself understood and to understand what was being said to me,” said Rada idly.

“I’d love to learn languages. I don’t think anybody back home spoke more than two. Most of ‘em don’t even speak English so good,” said Prudence.

“Maybe we could talk to Nick about that when we see him,” suggested Rada. She turned to look back at Zola. “Do we know when that will be yet?”

“He would like to invite the two of you to join him in his new apartment for dinner at seven or later,” said Zola.

Knowing it was right around three in the afternoon right now, Rada said, “How about eight?”

Prudence leaned into her and whispered, “But, I’m hungry now.”

“Eight will be fine. If you’d like to eat a little something before then, your kitchen is fully stocked and there’s a catering team downstairs in what will be the dining room. We can also have them bring something up to you if you like,” said Zola.

“Thank you. Let’s do that,” said Rada.

Several hours later, she was shaking Prudence awake. By that point, they’d eaten, showered, fooled around, and napped, Rada only briefly. When Pru blinked sleepily at her, she said, “We should get ready. It’s almost seven.”

Prudence looked down at her own naked form where she laid on top of the bedspread. “Maybe I should just go like this. It’s sure to make an impression.”

“It certainly would ... if all you want from Nick is sex. That’s up to you,” said Rada.

Prudence considered that for long enough that Rada was confident she was thinking about what she might want from Nick. Finally, she said, “I guess we might not get around to talking about me learning Japanese if I don’t put some clothes on.”

Rada smiled. “Good thinking. Do you know what you want to wear?”

Prudence raised her pointer finger. “Did we bring my schoolgirl outfit? He seemed to really like that.”

“I don’t know. Do you think we should dress like strippers tonight?” Rada prompted her.

Prudence frowned. “But ... we are strippers.”

“We’re a lot of other things too, though - like Nick’s guests,” Rada pointed out.

Prudence gave a faint shake of her head and rolled onto her stomach. “What do you think I should wear, then?”

Rada smiled again. “How about that white wrap top you bought while shopping with Verity?” Rada asked.

Prudence considered that. “It’s nice...”

“But?” Rada prompted once more.

“But what if we’re not sexy enough and Nick decides that he doesn’t want to sleep with us after all?” Prudence suggested.

Rada laughed in spite of herself. “I promise you that won’t happen. We are plenty sexy without trying.”

Prudence looked back over her shoulder. “Are you sure? Maybe you haven’t noticed, but there are a lot of really, really hot girls around Nick all the time.”

“I’ve noticed and we’re two of them.” Rada sat on the edge of the bed, leaned down, and kissed the small of Prudence’s back, eliciting a surprised gasp. “Do you doubt me?”

“N-no...” Prudence managed to say. “I just got butterflies, I guess. What if I’m not any good at it?”

“You aren’t supposed to be good at it yet, but if last night taught us anything, it’s that you’re a very fast learner.” Rada kissed her spine again.

Prudence let out a long sigh. “There’s no going back after this, is there?”

“I don’t know,” purred Rada. “Where would you go back to if you could?”

That question literally stiffened Prudence’s spine. “Nowhere.” She levered herself up on her elbows. “There’s nowhere I want to go back to. Let’s find that shirt you were talking about.”

Promptly at eight, they knocked on Nick’s door, Prudence in the wrap top and a pink skirt and Rada in a little black dress. Rada hadn’t spelled it out for Pru, but she hoped the pink and white outfit would remind Nick that, for all that he knew about Prudence, she was still a remarkably innocent young woman compared to either of them.

Nick greeted them at the door himself and smiled broadly. “Wow, look at you two. Come on in.”

As Nick led them through the main room, Prudence whistled. “Wow, I thought our apartment was nice. This place is gorgeous.”

Nick turned and shrugged. “It is a lot of apartment. I’ve been here a couple of hours already and I keep thinking I should take one of the smaller units downstairs and use this one for entertaining.”

“You should definitely live here. It would be a real shame if nobody did. There must be some other place in the building you can use to entertain,” said Prudence.

Nick chuckled. “As it turns out there is. It’s right across the hall and just about as big as this place. The architects really didn’t miss a trick with this place.”

Rada looked around with a practiced eye. The ceilings here were at least twice as high as in her and Prudence’s apartment, with a wide open space surrounded by doors leading into other rooms as well as stairs leading up to a second level made up of a broad walkway hosting more doors. The entire wall facing the river was one big paneled window except where it was bifurcated by a massive fireplace that looked like it would be at home in the hall of some great feudal lord before the Renaissance. Couches and chairs dotted the floor, making smaller, more intimate spaces for people to gather. Directly in front of the window was a simple wooden table big enough for four people, but set for three so that all of them could look out at the incredible view.

Nick gestured to the table. “Would you like to sit and have some wine before dinner is served? I’ve apparently acquired a sommelier and she says the one I’ve opened is really good.”

“I don’t really know anything about wine,” said Prudence.

Nick chuckled. “Neither do I. To be honest, I’m not really much of a drinker at all, but I thought it might help calm my nerves a little tonight.”

The confession of nerves on Nick’s part was like a transformative tonic for Prudence. She smiled widely and leaned in to kiss him on the cheek. “You don’t need to worry about anything. This is going to be fun.”

Nick chuckled, his shoulders dropped fractionally, and some tension went out of his spine. “Of course. Wine?”

“Yes, please.” Prudence looked towards the table and Nick gestured at the chair directly facing the window. She sat. He poured. Rada decided to accept a glass as well. She was still trying to find the right balance between being Nick’s guest and working for him, but decided that tonight she would be ninety-five percent guest and five percent field agent.

After a bit of small talk, the conversation turned to Nick and Prudence comparing notes on who had grown up in a worse town. Both Mather Parish and Brownfield Mills sounded rather dreadful to Rada - plagued by unemployment and poverty, trying to solve their problems with drugs and religion in different mixtures, and losing the best and brightest of each generation as any young person who could leave left as soon as possible.

“What about you, Rada? Where did you grow up?” Nick asked.

“Moscow,” said Rada.

Nick frowned and made a noncommittal sound. “What was that like?”

Rada sipped her wine thoughtfully. “For me, it was good. My parents are well-positioned and well-educated and they have made their peace with the current administration.”

Nick sat back in his chair and considered her. “Why’d you leave to join SSCS, then ... if you don’t mind my asking?”

Rada had minded him asking until he gave her an escape hatch to tell him it was none of his business. Individual origin stories had been a common topic of discussion among the SSCS trainees in Rada’s cohort, but she’d chosen not to share her real reasons for enrolling in the training with anyone but her mentor until now and even he had only heard part of it. She sighed, “I had very high aspirations growing up. I wanted to be the first female general in the KGB or the Red Army, but my family had a history of opposing Putin’s way of doing things and that guaranteed I would never succeed as long as he and men like him are in power. Also, the struggle against the decadent, capitalist West was over and the capitalists had won. I chose to join the winning side. And you can’t get much more capitalist than SSCS.”

“I used to joke with Rada that I thought she was a Russian spy,” said Prudence.

“You weren’t far off. She is Russian and she was keeping an eye on you for me,” Nick pointed out.

Rada felt the need to defend her boss from his own words. She pointed at him with the hand holding her wine glass. “But I was not spying. You were very specific that you wanted me to keep her safe, but not report back to you on what she was getting up to.”

Prudence reached over and laid and laid a hand on Nick’s arm. “That is so sweet. I can’t believe all the stuff you did for me when you’d never even met me.”

Nick gave a faint shake of his head. “Actually, I did it for your sister and her new husband as a wedding present.”

Prudence stroked his arm. “Yeah, but you could have just given them some silverware and left me to fend for myself. I was having a ton of fun, but it was a lot scarier before Rada showed up and moved in with me. Somehow, I knew she was going to be my guardian angel.”

Rada wanted to scoff at the idea. It would take a truly unique perspective to take anything she’d done since meeting Prudence as remotely angelic. Every action she’d taken had been mercenary, prurient, or both. She’d done it all with the knowledge that, once Nick swooped in and revealed himself to be the true hero of this story, she would quietly disappear out of Pru’s life forever.

Last night, for the first time, Rada had let herself consider the possibility that she and Prudence could have some kind of future together beyond her professional engagement. She had known from very early on that she was developing strong feelings, but it was only when they were lying together tangled in sweat-soaked sheets, Prudence cuddled up almost limp against her side, that she’d let herself hope that she might not have to tuck those feelings away and move on to the next special project.

She excused herself and went in search of a bathroom when Nick admitted he didn’t actually know where the bathrooms in this apartment were yet. Once she was safely enclosed in a tastefully-decorated en suite, Rada didn’t cry, but she acknowledged she could if she let herself and instead scowled at her own reflection in the gold-framed mirror. She’d lost track of how many people she let herself fall in love with since first arriving in Jayanesia all those years ago, but she knew that only one of those connections had ever turned into something real and lasting and even her time with Alice had ended in heartache when the other girl had failed out of training and returned to her family in Nashville.

As she often did on field assignments, Rada had carved an appropriate-sized hole in her heart to neatly fit the coming pain of leaving Prudence Parrish behind early on and then periodically gouged it wider and deeper as she realized it would hurt more than she’d expected. But now she was at a point where it felt like one more cut would leave her bleeding out on the floor. She had to admit to herself that, if she lost Prudence now, it would wreck her.

She glared fiercely at her own reflection, mentally cursing it for so stupidly letting her leave herself so wide open that one person could hurt her so much just by going away. Her reflection was unrepentant and only glared back at her. Accepting she would get no satisfaction there, she took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and tried to force herself to consider her options. When that just led her back into self-recrimination time and again, she instead let her thoughts drift where they would go and eventually found herself drifting back to a day when she’d lain on her bed in her grandfather’s hunting cabin and listened to the wind as it drove snow against the window hard enough to make it rattle. That day, she’d loosened her grip on the dream that had driven her for years and, as a result, come to the West, joined SSCS, and entered a world she couldn’t have fathomed until she was a part of it. Even with her whole world changing, she hadn’t shown fear, but it had been as terrifying as jumping from a plane without being certain what you’d strapped to your back was a parachute.

That analogy gave her the answer. When it came to falling for Prudence, she’d already jumped. There was no point in bracing for an impact she couldn’t possibly survive. She could only assume a safe landing and do everything in her power to make it so. In the meantime, she would open herself to the exhilaration she so wanted to feel.

When she opened her eyes, her reflection was smiling. Knowing that her life could change completely again was frightening, but she was a survivor. She would live a life with Prudence for as long as she was able and she would fight like hell if anyone tried to take it away from her.

She strode back to the table where Nick and Prudence were leaning close together and laughing about something. Being with Prudence would mean sharing her with others and opening herself to further potentially painful complications. Nick Coyle was the most immediate of those complications. Rada already liked Nick well enough. He’d been central to every part of her growing relationship with Prudence. But, he hadn’t done it for her. As he pointed out, he hadn’t even done it for Prudence. He might be aligned with their best interests right now, but he was already being pulled in dozens of directions and he had the power to ruin their lives without even meaning to.

Nick was so engrossed in his conversation that Rada had several seconds to consider him as she approached. Even her handlers in Special Projects had no idea how frequently Rada had sex with people she met on assignment. She’d liked a few of them, disliked a few more, and viewed most as a means to an end. To Rada, sex and love were related, but far from inexorably linked. When Prudence had asked her to sleep with Nick, she hadn’t needed to give it much thought before agreeing. Nick was fit, relatively attractive, and not personally odious. He was a bit young for Rada’s tastes - no younger than Prudence, but it seemed more pronounced somehow. Besides - ignoring last night, it had been months since Rada had sex with anyone and longer still since she’d been with a man.

Committing to sex with Nick had been easy. Rada now decided to commit to the more challenging task of seducing him. She would do so both for her own and Prudence’s sake - although Prudence looked to be doing fine on her own behalf. She would make Nick fall at least a little bit in love with them even if it meant she was likely to fall a little bit in love with him as well.

Prudence looked up as Rada got closer to the table. “What was the name of that guy who offered five thousand dollars to have sex with me?”

“Robert Schermerhorn,” said Rada automatically.

Prudence turned back to Nick. “Yeah, he wasn’t bad looking and he seemed nice. I told him I’d consider it and tell him the next time I saw him, but he never came back. I thought he really liked me.”

Rada took her seat again. “I looked into his background and decided it was best he not come back.”

Prudence’s eyes widened. “Did you kill him?”

Rada shook her head. “I threatened to tell his pregnant wife what he was planning.”

Nick frowned. “I don’t remember any of this in your reports.”

“I mentioned that she was being frequently propositioned. I didn’t see the need to document every single case,” said Rada.

Nick shrugged. “Fair enough. Are we all ready to eat?”

Prudence said she was famished and Rada acknowledged she could eat. The same caterers who had provided lunch brought dinner. They ate and drank more wine. Rada relaxed into the conversation, treating Nick like she would if he were a fellow field agent and not her boss.

They lingered over dinner and let Prudence talk them into having dessert. After the last dishes had been cleared away and the three of them had been left alone in the apartment by the staff long enough for the conversation to lull, Prudence said, “So, should we get on with the wanton harlotry now?”

Nick shot Rada a look, but she just shrugged, leaving it in his hands. He said, “Actually, I’m a little bit stuffed. I would offer to show you two around the apartment, but I haven’t seen much of it myself. How about we explore it together?”

Prudence rose. “Cool, I’ve never lived anywhere I had to explore before.”