Chapter Text
“In this world, nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” - Benjamin Franklin
Rio Vidal doesn’t make house calls. She hasn’t made a house call in five years. She thought she was long past making house calls. And yet here she is, ringing a damn doorbell like she’s the milkman.
The last job Rio did was a bust at a tech startup, filled with 25-year-old boys who thought that they were above doing simple tasks like showering and paying their taxes. The showering thing was a lost cause, but Rio did what she did best and collected a massive check from the tech boys for the good ‘ol U.S. of A., and a handy promotion for herself.
The job before that was a money laundering scheme, a group of bald Florida men sending their commissions from yacht sales offshore to conveniently not pay any income tax. Another seven figure check for Uncle Sam and a corner office for Rio.
Rio doesn’t mean to brag, because one can only maintain a certain amount of suave and cool while working for the Internal Revenue Service, but she’s kind of hot shit. A couple years ago, she earned the moniker, “the bad boy of the IRS,” and it stuck. Because Rio is fucking good at her job.
She thought her next gig would be on the Amazon case, finally making some headway in weeding through the loopholes Bezos left behind, but no. For some reason, the case her boss placed on her desk was not busting one of the biggest global corporations, it was simply… some lady. Rio hasn’t had to chase the taxes of an individual in five years, but apparently this woman has slipped through the fingers of everyone else at this organization.
When Rio got the assignment, she asked John, “Jesus, how much tax evasion can one person do?” She thought it was rhetorical. It wasn't.
The answer is a lot. It’s almost impressive. This woman isn’t a CEO or a billionaire; she’s simply a middle class woman who refuses to pay any taxes by any means necessary. And it's apparently enough for the bad boy of the IRS herself to be ringing the doorbell of an unassuming three story house in bumfuck, suburban New Jersey to go toe to toe with who Rio has dubbed in her head, “the bad girl of tax evasion.”
All evidence Rio has of her is a grainy passport photo and decades of questionable documents. So when the door swings open, Rio can’t blame herself for the little swoop of anticipation in her stomach, to finally go face to face with whoever the fuck this Agatha Harkness thinks she is.
The bad girl of tax evasion, Rio finds with a sinking stomach, is strikingly beautiful. She answers the door at 2pm on a Wednesday wearing only a silk robe, unruly brown hair falling around her shoulders and a sharp smile that feels like a dagger directed at Rio.
Rio clears her throat, makes sure she is looking this woman directly in the eye, and not lingering on any exposed body parts. She is a professional, after all.
“Agatha Harkness?” Rio asks, though she knows the answer.
Agatha Harkness herself leans on the doorway, arms crossed, smile glinting.
“And who’s asking?” She asks languidly.
Rio lifts up her badge. “Agent Rio Vidal, IRS. You should have been expecting us.”
Agatha’s smile grows wider. “The tax man, of course. It’s so… cute that they let you have badges.”
“I get a gun, too,” Rio deadpans before she can help it. She does get a gun sometimes, when it’s for drug-related tax crimes, and she can’t say she hates the feel of it.
Agatha laughs a little. She raises both her hands up, which causes the robe to slip a little off her shoulder.
“Don’t shoot, officer, I’m just a simple woman bad at filling out forms.”
Rio raises an eyebrow. She has done a lot of research into Agatha Harkness’ paperwork. The reason she’s here is definitely not because of Agatha’s lack of skill. Quite the opposite.
“May I come in?” Rio asks. “You should have prepared your last six years of documentation in preparation.”
“Buy a girl dinner first,” Agatha says, with a suggestive little grin.
Rio has to stop herself from smiling back. Maybe in another life.
Agatha holds Rio’s gaze for one more second than appropriate, before stepping aside to let Rio in.
“You know, you’re nothing like the last guy who came,” she says casually, as Rio walks into what, for all intents and purposes, looks like a normal house of a normal woman.
“Abilash, right?” Rio says. She’s read Abilash’s write-up of his audit with Agatha in preparation. It left a lot to be desired. “Useless man.”
“Oh, I found him quite kind,” Agatha says. It’s like she’s injected honey into her voice, sticky and sweet.
“To a fault,” Rio mutters. “Your papers?”
“You don’t beat around the bush,” Agatha says.
Rio can’t help herself, she raises an eyebrow at the idiom. Agatha grins at her, before pointing to the kitchen. “My papers are right there, officer.”
“Agent,” Rio corrects.
She catches Agatha rolling her eyes for a second before schooling her face into something more of a hostess. Rio hides her smile as she heads to the kitchen. Agatha follows, bare feet on the linoleum.
“Can I interest you in coffee? Tea?” Agatha asks, the fake sweetness back in her voice. “You must have had such a long day getting here.”
She sounds like she’s a lonely housewife in a porno and Rio is a hunky plumber or something. Rio doesn’t hate the imagery.
“Sure, I’ll take a coffee,” she says quickly, looking away. She’ll save her fantasies for her mediocre hotel the IRS is paying for, thank you very much.
While Agatha preps the coffee, Rio opens the file box on the kitchen table. She sighs at the contents. They are almost deliberately unorganized, folded every which way, W-2s in with the 1099s, dating back as far as the ‘90s with no clear order.
“I told you I was bad at paperwork,” Agatha says, with a smile in her voice. She places a cup of coffee on the table.
“Thanks,” Rio says, not believing her for one minute.
She carefully places her briefcase on the table, takes out her favorite pen and a calculator. She takes off her blazer, slowly rolls up her sleeves, and sits down at the table. There are eyes on her, and Rio looks up to see the sharpness of Agatha’s gaze, glancing down at Rio’s now exposed forearms. Rio grins. Most of the time, when she catches women ogling her, they often blush and look away, embarrassed to be caught staring. But Agatha just holds Rio’s gaze and smiles at her, open and hungry in a way that causes Rio to be the one to blush and look away.
Jesus Christ. As a rule, Rio does not mix business with pleasure, especially not with a woman who owes more money to the government than some small banks. Yet, Agatha Harkness is already testing her.
Rio settles into the box of files easily. Despite the deliberate omissions and chaos, Rio is the best at what she does for a reason. Besides, she has copies most of these already, has combed them over back at her office, already knows her game plan.
Agatha settles at the table across from Rio, watching her work. Rio finds she doesn’t hate it. She enjoys the feeling of Agatha’s gaze, likes the focus on her. She shows off a little, licking her thumb to parse through documents, making steady notes with her neat handwriting, using her deft fingers to flick through stuck together papers.
“You don’t have to sit here,” Rio says after a few hours. “I’m sure this is boring for you.
Agatha leans back in her chair, crossing her legs. “Not bored at all, Agent Vidal. I’m sure you’re very good at what you do.”
Rio feels like the helpless plumber in the porno for a terrifying and exhiliarating moment. Then she shakes it, puts her head down, returns to the documents, the narrative that she was already aware of now spelled out in black and white ink.
By the time Rio sorts through everything, her coffee is long gone, the sky outside has changed to the golden of sunset, and Agatha Harkness is still watching her. Rio chews on her pen. She knows what made Abilash fold, has found one of the clear issues here, the hard one. Rio decides to start there.
“You claim a dependent,” Rio says, ripping off the band-aid. “And you have since 2006.”
Agatha nods, holds eye contact. “My son,” she says.
“Right,” Rio says. Of course this woman isn’t going to make this easy. She pulls out another document. “Nicholas, correct? The same son whose death resulted in this medical malpractice suit that you won in 2014?”
Agatha’s eyes narrow. “Don’t they teach bedside manner at tax school?”
“No,” Rio says bluntly. “I’m truly sorry for your loss, Miss Harkness, but you can’t claim a dependent over a decade after his death.”
Something sharpens in Agatha’s gaze, something hard and cold.
“Don’t tell me how to grieve,” she snaps.
Rio wouldn’t call claiming a check from the government for ten years in a row grieving.
“Apologies,” Rio says. “But in the future, don’t claim a dependent if you have none. Especially when you are still collecting the settlement from the lawsuit.”
Agatha bares her teeth a little at Rio, something almost feral coming out, before she quickly hides it, schools her mouth into a frown. Tears begin to well in her eyes. Rio is either the worst person in the world or Agatha is alarmingly good at this.
“It’s just…” Agatha says, wiping her eyes, “when you suffer such a loss, you don’t really think about how to do the taxes properly.”
“Of course,” Rio says. “That’s what I’m here for. To help.”
Agatha’s eyes narrow again, before the mask comes back on. Oh, she’s good.
“And I so appreciate that, Agent Vidal.” The honey is back in her tone, thick and too sweet.
Rio tries to ignore it, barrels on.
“Going back even further, Miss Harkness, you didn’t report taxable income years and years before Nicholas was even born.”
“I thought the statute of limitations for the IRS was six years,” Agatha says sharply.
“And I thought you were confused about doing taxes properly,” Rio counters with a grin. “Just pointing out that this pattern is not a new one.”
Agatha is glaring at her, gaze hot and angry. It makes something that has long been dormant in Rio awaken. Fuck those corporate and start-up scammers, Agatha Harkness is the first real challenge Rio has had in years.
“In more recent years,” Rio says, returning to the papers and trying not to smile too wide. “We found bank records of you being paid to consult for the business Kale Kare, yet that income went unreported.”
“You don’t have anything better to do than to go through my bank records?” Agatha asks with a sneer.
Rio grins. She likes that Agatha isn’t trying to hide her disdain anymore. So Rio stops trying to hide her glee.
“Yes, I have much better things to do,” Rio says honestly. “And I could get around to doing them if you would just cooperate.”
She makes her voice hard and demanding on the last word and is delighted to see Agatha sit up a little straighter, eyes darkening. Interesting.
“Fine,” Agatha says, airily, like this whole thing isn’t more difficult than pulling teeth. “I helped a friend with her stupid business. As a favor. Unpaid. If she appreciated it enough to gift me some money, then that’s her business. Not the government’s.”
“She ‘gifted’ you fifty thousand a year for three years?”
“Jen’s a kind soul.”
“Sure.”
They’re staring at each other over the now evenly stacked forms at the table. Agatha’s mask has fully slipped and Rio is fascinated by what’s underneath it, an unruly sort of anger, a sharp passion. Agatha looks like she wants to tear Rio from limb to limb. And Rio, god help her, would probably let her.
“Moving on to property taxes…”
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Agatha lets out. “Don’t you have a life?”
“Excuse me?” Rio asks.
“Do you just barge into poor women’s homes day after day and demand they give you money?”
Rio laughs a little.
“No, today’s a very special day.”
“God, I can’t imagine a more lame and boring job than going through the private elements of people’s lives and doing the math on how much money they owe the government. How dull.”
Rio raises her eyebrows. It’s not the worst she’s heard, but dull hits a little hard. She’s thinking very not dull thoughts about Agatha and her robe, thank you very much.
“I’m very good at this job,” Rio says simply. “Which would be a lot easier if certain people just paid their taxes.”
“For what?” Agatha sneers, “So I can pay the salaries of hacks like you? So the government can bomb whoever they want on any given day? So the state hospital can hire a joke of a pediatric surgeon who doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing?”
There’s a blaring silence. There are no more crocodile tears from Agatha, just simple, sharp, rage. Rage that Rio doesn’t blame her for. Rio is good at her job, great at her job even, but even she won’t fight Agatha on this one.
“I’m just a collector,” Rio says calmly, gently even.
Agatha’s upper lip curls slightly, but she doesn’t say anything more. Rio just goes back to her work. She does a few figures by hand before tucking her pen behind her ear and typing into her calculator.
“What do you do for fun?” Agatha asks.
The question startles Rio so much that she looks up.
“Excuse me?”
Agatha leans over the table. Her robe slips. Rio tries not to notice.
“I asked what you do for fun, Agent Vidal? Surely it’s not all taxes all the time.”
Rio isn’t sure why the question throws her so much. She does have a life, it’s just kind of—to quote Agatha—lame and boring. She shrugs.
“Sometimes I play in a rec basketball league. I garden. I can make a mean breakfast burrito.”
God, she does sound lame and boring.
“Who gets to eat these ‘mean breakfast burritos?’ A husband?” Agatha asks. Rio raises an eyebrow. “Wife?”
Rio shakes her head. She finds herself grinning. She likes that Agatha wants to know.
“And how about you?” She asks Agatha. “Anyone to share your unreported earnings with?”
“You tell me,” Agatha says, gesturing to the papers on the table. “You know everything about me.”
“No,” Rio says, “I know everything you report to the government. So practically nothing.”
Agatha smirks at her. “Smart girl.”
Rio likes that more than she should.
Agatha waves her left hand at Rio. Five beautiful ringless fingers.
“No one could ever tie me down,” she says.
“Shocking,” Rio responds, deadpan.
“Likewise,” Agatha says. “Though I’m sure you would have a wife and five kids by now if you had a different job. No one wants to shack up with the tax man.”
Rio laughs, she can’t help it. Agatha is persistent. And genuinely quite funny.
It’s dark out by now. Rio knows she should get going. There’s a bed waiting for her at a Holiday Inn Express and a flight tomorrow morning back to her lame and boring life.
Reluctantly, she turns the calculator around, shows the final figure to Agatha. Agatha’s eyebrows raise. She grins.
“Wow, I’m very good,” she says.
Rio laughs a little. “We take check, money order, or a wire transfer.”
“Who still has a checkbook in 2024?” Agatha says. “And where can you wire money at this hour?”
“Western Union is open until 9.”
Agatha glares at her. Rio smiles back.
“I have a rental car, can drive us there right now. Unless you happen to find a checkbook.”
“Fine,” Agatha spits out. She leaves the kitchen only to return with a checkbook. Rio grins.
“Wow, someone with a checkbook in 2024,” she deadpans. “Who would have thought?”
Agatha rolls her eyes. She leans over and plucks the pen from behind Rio’s ear, bending over the table to write the check. It gives Rio a clear view down her robe.
“Who should I make it out to?” Agatha asks. She looks up to catch Rio staring. Rio doesn’t look away this time. “Agent Rio Vidal? Officer Pain in the Ass?”
Rio laughs. “The Internal Revenue Service is fine.”
“Bor-ing,” Agatha sing-songs, but she writes the check, signs it with a flourish, tears it off the checkbook.
Then she unceremoniously shoves it into Rio’s chest. Her palm presses over the check, fingers splayed out so some of them land where Rio’s shirt is slightly unbuttoned at the top. Rio has to stop herself from gasping at the first skin-on-skin contact with this woman, a thumb pressed to her sternum. She looks up at Agatha, standing above her.
“Happy, tax man?” Agatha sneers.
Rio grins. She feels her heart beating hard against Agatha’s hand. She knows Agatha feels it too.
“Thrilled.”
They stay like that for a moment, suspended in time, before Rio can’t take it anymore. She leans up at the same time that Agatha leans down and then they’re kissing. Rio moans into it, unable to help herself, pulling Agatha into her lap, opening her mouth against Agatha’s, the desperation of the day spilling out of her.
Agatha kisses hard, with teeth, hands in Rio’s hair, pulling it out of her bun. Rio likes it. Rio likes it a lot, this unruly woman on top of her, biting her lip, pulling her hair, pressing her hips down into Rio’s lap.
They break away only to breathe, for Agatha to look down at Rio with sharp hooded eyes and say, “I didn’t know you had it into you, Agent Vidal.”
“I’m off the clock,” Rio growls, and kisses her again, hard, reveling in the sounds Agatha makes.
Seconds later, she pulls back, tries to clear her head. “Wait.”
The check has slipped down Rio’s front, settling between her and Agatha’s thighs. Rio carefully picks it up. Then she puts her hands on Agatha’s waist and removes her from her lap. Agatha makes an almost cute little huffing sound as Rio stands, reaches for her briefcase, and safely puts the check inside an inner pocket.
She turns back to Agatha.
“Now I’m off the clock.”
Agatha responds with a sort of growl before shoving Rio back so her ass hits the edge of the table. Unceremoniously, Agatha takes her arm and sweeps all the papers off the table. The papers that Rio spent hours organizing.
“Are you kidding me?” Rio asks. But then Agatha puts her hand to Rio’s chest and pushes her down on the table, on the now mess of papers. She steps between Rio’s legs and leans down over her.
“Are you complaining, Agent Vidal?” Agatha asks in a breathy whisper. Then she pulls the tie of her robe.
Rio finds that she is absolutely not complaining.
The sun is barely out when Rio has to leave Agatha Harkness’ house to catch her flight back to DC. Her body aches in a way someone’s body can only ache when they are in their late 30s and got fucked within an inch of their life against a table.
Rio can’t stop grinning as she puts on the remnants of her suit. She forgoes underwear, as it’s practically ruined, instead choosing to leave it on Agatha’s nightstand along with a business card. She draws a little heart on the card for good measure, before carefully placing it on the nightstand along with her soiled underwear.
She takes one long glance at Agatha’s sleeping form, fully naked, one leg hanging off the bed. She’s gorgeous even deep in sleep, the sharp lines of her face, the smooth curves of her body. Rio hasn’t been hungry for another person like that in a long long time. Literally and figuratively; she spent hours on her knees last night reveling in the taste of Agatha on her tongue.
Rio shakes it. She has a flight to catch. She presses a brief kiss to Agatha’s forehead before leaving the bedroom, snatching her briefcase from the floor of the kitchen and quietly letting herself out the front door.
Birds are literally chirping in the morning air and Rio laughs at the absurdity of it all. She makes eye contact with one of Agatha’s neighbors as she walks out to her rental car; a teen boy with his backpack on who gawks at Rio unabashedly as he gets into his Subaru. Rio, having fun, bares her teeth at him until he startles and looks away. She laughs as she gets into her car.
Rio is on a high all the way back to DC. She doesn’t even bother to change her clothes before going right into the office. Who cares if her suit is wrinkled and she smells a little like sex? She will deliver the check from the bad girl of tax evasion right onto John’s desk and she will not mention that the signer of said check gave her the best sex she’s had in at least a decade.
There’s a skip in her fucking step as she knocks on John’s door, sticks her head in, and grins.
“How did it go, Vidal?” He asks.
“Oh, I’ll tell you how it went,” Rio says gleefully. She snaps open her briefcase, opens the pocket where she stashed the check last night and…
“Oh, fuck me.”
Four hours and another flight back to Newark later, Rio is pounding on Agatha Harkness’ door for the second time in two days.
“Agatha!” She calls. “I know you’re in there.” She rings the bell again and again. “Let me the fuck in!”
The teen neighbor is apparently home from school already and eyes Rio as she continues to bang on Agatha’s door. She growls at him.
“Agatha!” Rio yells again. “I’ll kidnap your teen neighbor if you don’t answer the fucking door.”
“What?” The teen yelps from his yard. “Don’t bring me into this.”
Finally, the door swings open and there stands Agatha Harkness herself in the same fucking robe as before, arms crossed, grin wide.
“Back so soon, Agent Vidal?”
“Where’s the damn check, Agatha?”
Agatha taps a finger to her chin like she’s thinking.
“Hmm. I had such a busy night last night, I can’t seem to recall where I placed it.” She raises an eyebrow at Rio. “Same suit?”
Rio narrows her eyes. “Same robe?”
“Do you need help, Agatha?” The teen calls from his yard. It’s a nice offer, but Rio’s pretty sure she could snap this kid in half with her pinky.
“I’m fine, Teen!” Agatha calls airily. “You know how women are.”
“I don’t, actually,” he calls back, which almost makes Rio laugh.
But it doesn’t. She has a job to do.
“Let me in,” she commands.
“Bossy,” Agatha says. “It’s a good look on you, Agent Vidal.”
“Gross,” the kid mutters.
“Get out of this conversation,” Rio hisses over her shoulder at him and then storms her way into Agatha’s house.
“What happened to ‘good afternoon, Agatha?’” Agatha says with a grin as Rio storms past her. “What happened to ‘good to see you again, Agatha?’ What happened to ‘thanks for rocking my world last night, Agatha?’”
Agatha does a startling accurate impression of Rio on the last bit, but Rio ignores her, making a beeline for the kitchen. Last night, the checkbook had fallen to the floor somewhere between the time of Agatha sucking a hickey onto the side of Rio’s tit and sticking a hand down her pants.
Now, the kitchen table has been absolved of the scene of the crime, with no evidence except the file box, once again stuffed to the brim with unorganized papers. Rio dumps it out onto the table.
“Wow,” Agatha drawls from where she leans on the doorway. “Someone spent a lot of time organizing that.”
“Fuck you,” Rio says succinctly as she searches through the papers to no avail to find the checkbook.
“That’s the idea,” Agatha says, coming up behind Rio. Rio can feel her hot breath on the back of her neck. Her muscle memory betrays her and she shivers.
Agatha places a palm on the small of Rio’s back, and leans up to whisper in her ear. “The checkbook’s not there, sweetheart.”
Rio does not like being called sweetheart by a slightly older beautiful woman whose long fingers are currently stroking on her back. Nope. She has a job to do.
Rio turns abruptly, so she’s face to face with Agatha. Agatha is close to her, only inches away. She’s smiling an open mouthed smile, like her mouth contains the answers to all Rio wants and the tools to destroy her at the same time. Rio feels the edge of the table pressing into her own ass, in too close of a position to last night. An embarrassingly large part of her wants to do a direct replay; wants to spread her legs wide and let Agatha in. But she doesn’t; she has a job to do.
Quickly, Rio grabs Agatha by the waist and flips them around, pushing Agatha into the table, holding her there. Agatha colors at the contact, breath coming faster.
“Checkbook,” Rio grits out. She tightens her hands on Agatha’s waist.
“I misplaced it,” Agatha says, with a little pout. She spreads her legs a little, inviting Rio to step between them. “Just like you misplaced your underwear last night.”
“I will find it,” Rio growls.
“They’re in my bedroom.”
“The checkbook.” Rio clarifies. Agatha’s knees part further. Rio ignores her. “You can do this the easy way or the hard way.”
“Don’t threaten me with a good time,” Agatha says. She tosses her hair to expose her neck.
“Hard way it is,” Rio says. Her hands squeeze on Agatha’s waist, and she watches Agatha gasp a little, before she pulls away. Removes herself from Agatha’s immediate area. “Guess I’m going on a treasure hunt.”
She briskly leaves the kitchen, flexing her hands.
“Do you have a warrant, Agent Vidal?” Agatha calls after her.
Rio ignores her. All she’s seen of Agatha’s house is exclusively the kitchen and the bedroom, and Rio wasn’t exactly checking out the interior layout when she made the transit from one to the other. The first door she opens is a hall closet, then a bathroom, then finally, something that looks vaguely like an office.
She doesn't look behind her, focusing on her task. There’s the desk in the corner, antique and smooth wood, with more personality than the pristine living room. There’s a framed photo on the desk of Agatha about 15 years younger, face squished together with a young kid who has the same sparkle in his eye as her. Agatha looks so unabashedly happy in it that something in Rio’s chest catches. She swallows, looks away, feels like she’s intruding on something private; something that Agatha doesn’t want her to know, even though she already knows what the documents have told her.
“You could have just asked for a tour,” Agatha says from the doorway of the office. She’s leaning against it casually.
Rio quickly looks back to Agatha, trying not to give away that she accidentally emotionally snooped when she was trying to professionally snoop.
“This is more fun,” Rio says, all bravado, before turning back to the desk.
She opens the top drawer for something to do. It’s extremely organized; various office supplies stacked perfectly and ready for use. Rio shakes her head; she knew that chaotic box was just to fuck with her.
She tries the next drawer, expecting more of the same. To her surprise, delight, and a concerning amount of disappointment, Rio finds exactly when she’s looking for. An unassuming checkbook, Agatha’s name and address clearly printed on the top.
“Good work, Agent Vidal,” Rio hears from behind her. Agatha is closer now, like a cat only approaching its prey when the prey is distracted. “Do you want a gold star?”
“Actually,” Rio says, pulling a pen from the breast pocket of her blazer. “I want you to write a check to the US Government.”
Agatha rolls her eyes. She steps even closer, leans casually on the desk.
“Just when you start to impress me, Vidal, you do something to remind me how incredibly lame you are.”
Rio is stuck between fighting back on the lame thing and preening at the fact that she impressed Agatha. She does neither, holding out the pen for Agatha.
“All you have to do is sign,” she says, monotone. “I can do the rest.”
“Ooh, can you?” Agatha taunts. She doesn't take the pen.
Rio rolls her eyes. She goes to the checkbook, dates the top check, fills out the amount and the recipient, before sliding it over the desk so it's in front of Agatha.
“Just need your John Hancock there,” Rio says.
“My John Han-what?” Agatha asks with a smirk. Rio almost laughs. But she doesn’t. She’s so close and she’s not letting Agatha get away with this again.
Agatha looks at the checkbook, then back to Rio. Then, as if in slow motion, she picks a pen off the desk (not the one Rio offered) and uncaps it. Rio literally holds her breath as Agatha puts the tip of the pen to the check, her body almost shaking with anticipation.
“Here’s the thing, Agent Vidal,” Agatha says, as she leans over the checkbook. “What if you lose this one too?”
“I didn’t lose the other one,” Rio snaps. She sounds like a child. “We both know that.”
Agatha grins. Then, agonizingly, she puts the pen down. Rio is going to kill her.
“What I know,” Agatha says, leaning back against the desk languidly. “Is that this is the second time you have come into my house demanding something.” She reaches out a hand and adjusts the lapel of Rio’s blazer, fixes her collar. “But I don’t think it’s what you really want.”
“Trust me,” Rio says, voice low. “All I want is you to sign that check and I’ll be out of your hair.”
Agatha pouts. “Now, when you say things like that, Agent Vidal, you can see why I don’t want to sign it.”
Rio narrows her eyes.
“You don’t want to sign it because you don’t want to pay your taxes. I have nothing to do with it.”
Agatha scrunches up her nose in a way that Rio would almost describe as cute. “You have a little something to do with it.”
Rio steps closer to her. “Sign the check, Agatha.”
Agatha spreads her legs a little, robe slipping and leaving her thighs almost bare.
“I like it when you tell me what to do, Agent Vidal.”
“And I like it when you do what I tell you to.”
Agatha whines a little at that, a throaty sound that shoots between where Rio is bare against her slacks.
It’s bad, Rio knows, how much she likes this. She can’t even say she’s off the clock anymore. She knows she’s in beyond deep, knows that she is compromising her own rigid standards. But Rio is not immune to being wanted. She is specifically not immune to being wanted by this specific woman, who has made the last 24 hours of Rio’s life the most thrilling and frustrating she’s had in years.
She steps between Agatha’s legs, putting her hands on the warmth of Agatha’s bare thighs, just to hear the sound Agatha makes. It’s a good one too, a small gasp of surprise, followed by a guttural groan when Rio digs her nails in.
“Sign the fucking check.” Rio says.
“Boring,” Agatha says. “Tell me what you really want.”
“You know what I really want,” Rio growls. Her hands slide further up Agatha’s thighs until her thumbs brush the edges of where Agatha has also forgone underwear.
Agatha sucks in a deep breath. “If you say the damn check again.”
Rio laughs. She likes her like this, on the edge, wanting something, clinging on to the upper hand like a lifeline. Last night, when Rio was on her knees for her, tongue buried inside of her, Agatha had almost begged, the word please catching in her throat. Rio is suddenly filled with the urge to make that almost into a reality.
She leans down and kisses the slope of Agatha’s neck. Agatha moans as Rio keeps kissing her there, mouth open and hungry. She keeps one hand still teasing the soft skin of Agatha’s upper thigh, but the other pulls Agatha’s hair so more her neck is exposed, so her skin is bare for Rio’s teeth.
After she sucks a blooming bruise into the smooth skin of Agatha’s neck, she moves up to her ear, licking up the side of it.
“What I want,” she breathes into Agatha’s ear. “Is for you to beg for me.”
Agatha responds with a loud drawn out moan. Rio grins into her ear, moves her right hand so it’s playing with the wetness gathered on the hair between Agatha’s legs, teasing. Her left hand shoves Agatha’s robe aside to cup her breast, nail pressing into the nipple.
“Fuck,” Agatha says, sharp and biting. “Fuck, Rio.”
It’s the first time Agatha has said Rio’s first name and Rio likes it, likes the desperate tone of Agatha’s voice over the vowels.
“Was there something you wanted?” Rio whispers in her ear. Her fingers dance on the edge. “Come on, baby, just ask for it.”
“Just fuck me,” Agatha spits out.
Rio doesn’t. She leans back to look Agatha directly in the eyes. She grins, pressing her tongue into her cheek, taking in the flush of Agatha’s face, the wideness of her pupils, the way her breathing is coming fast and heavy. Rio raises an eyebrow, movies her fingers even closer, almost touching where Agatha wants her to. She waits.
“Please,” Agatha finally says, like it’s the hardest thing she’s ever said. “Please fuck me, Rio.”
“All you had to do was ask,” Rio says with a smile, and then she presses two fingers deep into Agatha.
Agatha’s response is loud and vulgar and immediate, hips thrusting into Rios hand, nails clawing at her back, obscene sounds coming out of her mouth. Rio could die right here happily, the delicious feel of Agatha wet and eager for her, alive with the knowledge that this force of nature begged Rio for her touch.
Rio is done teasing now, she fucks Agatha with precision and enthusiasm, gleefully building her up and up to her breaking point.
“Are you close?” she whispers into Agatha’s ear, knowing well and good the answer is yes.
Agatha nods frantically, almost undone. Perfect.
“Good,” Rio says.
Quickly, she removes her hand from Agatha and uses it to snatch up a pen.
“Sign the check and I’ll let you finish.”
Agatha lets out what could generously be called a feral yell. Rio just smirks at her.
“You said you liked me bossy,” she says smugly.
Agatha’s breath is still coming heavy, chest exposed, legs spread as she glares daggers at Rio.
“Fuck you,” Agatha spits.
“I’m not the one who needs fucked right now and we both know it,” Rio says with a grin. Once again, she offers the pen to Agatha. “If you don’t sign it, I’m leaving.”
There’s a stalemate for a moment, a delicious tension that Rio wants to consume, before Agatha’s long beautiful fingers snatch up the pen. She leans over, like it was her idea, and signs the check.
“Good girl,” Rio says, like an asshole.
She takes the checkbook from Agatha and looks it over, to make sure everything is correct, before gently ripping off the top check and placing it in the interior pocket of her blazer, right over her heart.
“Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?” Rio asks with a grin.
Agatha doesn’t respond in words. Instead she grabs Rio’s hand and shoves it back where she wants it. Rio goes willingly, eagerly even, sliding back into Agatha like butter. They both moan at the contact, and Rio resumes right where she left off, burying herself into Agatha, relentless with it, until Agatha is gripping Rio’s shoulders and throwing her head back and screaming through one orgasm and then another.
Afterwards, Rio licks her fingers, grinning around them. She feels like she could do literally anything.
“Look at you,” Agatha says, body loose and fucked, smile easy. “So self-satisfied, aren’t you?”
“Well,” Rio says. She can’t stop smiling. “I got what I wanted.”
Rio leaves Agatha’s house that night, much like she left in the morning. Body sore, smelling of sex, giddy with it. Only now she has a small piece of paper pressed closed to her chest that proves that she fucking won.
It takes a week for the check to bounce.