"What Parker Would Do" - Leverage (Sophie/Parker, NC-17)
Afterwards, Sophie could pinpoint the exact moment when she decided solo grifting just wasn’t doing it for her anymore, and she really needed to get back together with her boys. And her girl.
Oddly enough, that moment came when she was sitting in a perfectly beautiful outdoor café in Tuscany, on the most perfectly beautiful evening she could ever remember, with a glass of really brilliant Tignanello sitting on the table in front of her. In about fifteen minutes, a very handsome and sweet young man was due to arrive and make clear, once again, how interested he was in establishing an ongoing series of romantic interludes with her.
And at some point during the course of those interludes, Sophie would contrive to separate the young man from a collection of very valuable paintings… including at least one Leonardo… that his grandfather had stolen from their rightful owners while abusing his position as a high-up in Mussolini’s Fascist government.
Sophie sighed. Her time with Nate and the others had forever destroyed the happily greedy little Mistress of Acquisition she had once been. Now she couldn’t bring herself to pull off a job unless she knew she was somehow righting a wrong… taking things from bad people and giving them to good people.
Not that her young man was a bad person. He was certainly no Fascist. But he knew how his family had gotten those paintings, and he’d never made any attempt to return them. So Sophie would do it, and collect the very generous reward.
Which led to the moment Sophie realized this just wasn’t working anymore. The money didn’t matter… she had so much put away in her little “retirement fund” that she never really had to pull another job again. When it came down to it, it really didn’t matter whether she succeeded with this con or not.
If you don’t care about winning, don’t play. That would have been one of the first pieces of advice she’d have given to someone looking to follow in her footsteps. (Unless she was trying to con the person in question, in which case her first piece of advice would be Trust me.)
But this time, she didn’t care whether she won or lost. And that was sure to end badly.
Edith Piaf sang to her from inside her Nancy Gonzalez clutch. She’d forgotten to switch out her France ringtone for her Italy one. Another sign she was getting careless.
The caller ID line on her phone said “PICK UP SOPHIE.” She smiled. That meant it was either Hardison, or the person Hardison had taught that particular trick to.
“Hello, Parker,” she said into the phone, guessing the latter. “Is pick up Sophie a request for me, or an agenda item for you?”
“First things first,” Parker said. “Where are you?”
“Well you might ask, after I haven’t heard from you in two months,” Sophie pretended to scold her. “I’m sitting in a café in Prato.”
“Prada has its own café now?”
“Prato, Parker. It’s a city in Tuscany.”
“Oh. I knew that. Whatcha doing?”
“Waiting for a mark to show up.”
Sophie could hear Parker smirking. “You’re meeting a mark in a café in Tuscany. Does that mean he’s the young and hot studmuffin kind of mark?”
“He just might be.”
“I hate him already. When he gets there, tell him Parker hates you. Unless you want to share him, that is.”
Sophie smiled. “I’ve missed you, Parker,” she said, hushing her voice a little for fear of nosy diners at neighboring tables. “I’ve been finding out how cold a bed can get, even in the summer.”
“I miss you too,” Parker replied with her customary matter-of-fact tone. “Know what I do when I get feeling that way? I masturbate. You should try it. You just rub your vagina and think about sex, and pretty soon you’ll have an orgasm. It’s fun and safe and healthy.”
Sophie giggled, and looked around as if anyone around her might have heard. “You certainly don’t have to tell me that,” she said. “But that option doesn’t come with a lovely little blonde to kiss and snuggle and fall asleep with.”
Parker was silent for a few seconds. “I was gonna make another smart-ass quip there,” she said finally, “but I thought maybe it would hurt your feelings. So I didn’t.”
“Thank you,” Sophie said sincerely. “You’re getting better at that. So where have you been for all these weeks?”
“Geneva, mostly. It’s where I am right now, in fact. Not too far away from you. What are you wearing right now?”
Sophie was momentarily taken aback by the sudden change of subject, although that was another Parker trademark. “What am I wearing? Um, that spangly steel-gray minidress.”
“The one that looks like a disco ball? Oooh, I love that dress. It’s my favorite dress of yours, next to the French Maid outfit.”
Sophie blushed at the memory. “The one you bought for me.”
“Yeah. You do such a sexy French accent, I couldn’t resist. Worked out well, didn’t it?”
Sophie blushed even harder.
“Next time,” Parker continued breezily, “I’m getting you a Japanese schoolgirl outfit.”
“I… I don’t really do a Japanese accent, though.”
“That’s okay. You won’t have to say anything coherent. By the way, that disco-ball dress is, like, super short. Are you wearing panties?”
“Of course I am,” Sophie said. Is the evening getting warmer? It seemed so mild before. “I’m a little beyond the age of flashing people on my way out of taxicabs.”
“Which ones?”
Yes, Parker really is intimately familiar with my underwear inventory. And yes, it is getting hotter here. “The… the dark green silk bikinis.”
“Hmmm. I thought I ruined those when I saw you last.”
“I have…” Sophie squeaked, then stopped and cleared her throat and took a swallow of wine. “I have another pair. Wh… why do you ask?”
“No reason. Guess what I stole this week?”
“Oh, Parker. Stealing is a sin,” Sophie teased, trying to regain some sort of control over the conversation, and the tender girlish parts of her body.
“It sure is. I stole the Vincelli Necklace.”
If Hardison had been there to observe the perfect spit-take Sophie executed with her mouthful of Tignanello, he would have asked her to do it again so he could take a picture.
“The Vincelli Necklace? Did you manage to grab the Holy Grail and the Ark of the Covenant while you were at it?”
“Thought you’d be impressed,” Parker said. “I am just that damned good, yes. I’ve got it in my hands right now. A whole string of shiny, brilliant-cut goodness. It’s got more carats than Bugs Bunny’s refrigerator.”
“But… that necklace has got to be worth…”
“Well, I got paid seven million euros when I delivered it to my employer last week, and he was going to make a pretty healthy profit on it, so…”
“Who did you take it from? That necklace has been off the grid for fifty years.”
“Derwinski had it.”
“Derwinski? The dictator?”
“That’s the one. Worst human-rights record in the Former Soviet Union. Nate would be proud of me.”
“And who was the buyer?”
“Max Kurlander. The Wall Street ponzi scheme ringleader, now living in a nice villa in Paraguay with ten billion dollars and several underaged prostitutes.”
“Oh, boy,” said Sophie. “Um, we won’t tell Nate about that little detail then.” Something occurred to her. “Wait… didn’t you just say you delivered the necklace to the buyer last week?”
“Yep.”
“Then… how are you holding it in your hands right now?”
“Well, duh. I stole it back the next night. Did you think I was going to let an asshole like Kurlander keep it?”
Sophie laughed out loud. “I can’t believe you,” she said. “Somebody ought to write storybooks about you. So, you have another buyer lined up? I know you always want the money instead of the jewelry or the art or other kinds of stuff.”
“I don’t care about stuff,” Parker agreed. “But I care about you, and I know you like stuff. I stole the necklace for you, Sophie.”
Sophie was reduced to slack-jawed speechlessness.
“For… for me? Parker…”
“My anniversary present to you.”
Sophie’s hand and voice were both a bit shaky. “Anniversary?”
“Uh-huh. Exactly one year ago…”
Sophie considered the date, and thought back. “We were working the Nigerian job. And we were…”
“In the stairwell.”
“With the zipline…”
“And finding out for the first time how it felt to be holding on to each other and doing thrilling stuff that made our heads spin.”
“Oh, God, Parker.” Sophie rubbed her eyes. “I seem to have fallen all sorts of in love with you, did you know that? I wish you were here in person so I could tell you that face to face instead of over the phone, but I just can’t wait.”
“I love you too, Sophie.” There was a pause. “Hm. That was fun to say. You know what I’d be doing right now if I was there in person?”
“Embarrassing me somehow?”
“Oh, hell yeah. I’d come strutting into that café of yours absolutely, totally naked. Not a single stitch of clothes on me. Not even shoes. And I’d be holding the Vincelli Necklace. All the waiters would drop their trays and yell Mama Mia! and all the old guys would let their monocles fall out of their eyes.”
“And I’d make a beeline to your table, and get right down on my knees underneath it. I’d kiss and lick your thighs because your legs look so beautiful in that dress, and you really need to be rewarded for wearing it. Everybody would be staring at us, and you’d be getting all hot and bothered…”
Sophie made a noise into the phone that might have indicated agreement.
“Then I’d push your legs apart, and I’d reach in and pull out the waistband of your panties, and I’d drop the Vincelli Necklace down inside the front of them.”
“Unnh?”
“Damn right. There’s a lot of diamonds in this necklace, Sophie, and they’ve each got a lot of facets. Rough, nubbly facets. And when the necklace was down inside your panties I’d start kissing and licking you through the front of them. Letting my tongue and lips push and move the diamonds around inside there. Making ‘em get tangled up in your hair. Rubbing around against your lips and your sweet little jellybean. Pushing them inside you and letting them rub around, against each other, against your walls…”
“Pardon me, madam. Is the wine satisfactory?”
Sophie looked up, tears in her eyes. Waiter… café… Tuscany… oh God…
The part of her brain stem that was still functioning informed her that she was about to have an orgasm, and it was going to be a very big one, and there was nothing in the world she could do at this point to prevent it. And her climaxes were loud and obvious, even on those occasions when she might have preferred not to serenade the occupants of adjacent hotel rooms. She just couldn’t help it.
What would Parker do?
Parker would have decided this was the sexiest thing ever, and gone for it with total abandon.
And so Sophie clenched her teeth and shut her eyes and came with every fiber of her being. Came so hard she thought she might catch fire. She couldn’t really scream because she couldn’t really breathe, but the astonished waiter and diners probably got the gist of the situation from her frantically shuddering body, her hysterical whimpering, the sweat and tears pouring down her beet-red face, the way her legs and hips contorted in her frantic attempts to keep her vulva rubbing against the silk surface of her panties, her fist pounding helplessly on the tabletop…
A few hours later (for her, a few seconds later for everyone else), Sophie found herself with her cheek pressed against the table, every muscle trembling, every nerve singing, and every inch of her body drenched.
All the other patrons of the café stared at her in silence. The waiter looked at her, then looked around as if he expected a film crew to be somewhere nearby, and then looked back at her.
Sophie sat up, cleared her throat, and finger-combed her damp hair. She picked up her wine glass in a trembling hand and drained off its remaining contents.
“That’s the best Sangiovese I’ve ever tasted,” she told the waiter. “May I have a bottle to take with me?”
Sophie had made her wobbly way nearly out to the street before she remembered she was still holding her phone. “Parker? You still there?” she said into it.
“I think so. Was that what I thought it was? Did you just pop your cork in public, in front of all those people?”
“It would seem that way.”
Parker gave a low whistle. “You naughty, naughty girl. I’m so proud of you. And can I just point out that damn, I’m good with the phone sex.”
“You certainly could point that out. God…”
“Do you have your laptop with you? With the web cam?”
“Back in my hotel room, yes. Why?”
“Because I’m sitting here in my hotel room, with my laptop with the web cam. I’m wearing my black jeans, and my black boots with all the buckles, and my black tank top, and my black leather jacket. You like the blonde-on-black look, right? And I really need your advice to tell me in what order I should take these things off, and how fast or slow I should do it, and what I should do with your diamond necklace once I don’t have any clothes on anymore.”
Sophie hailed a cab… practically tackled it, in fact. The young man she was supposed to be meeting was just going to have to keep his art collection. The Parker Job was far more pressing a matter.