by Nic Saint
Mike didn’t much care for the service on the plane, and when they finally landed a couple of hours later he was starving. With all the budget cuts lately, there hadn’t been much to snack on, and as he was a big guy he was in urgent need of some real chow by the time they were ushered into Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris.
And it wasn’t just food he craved. Eyeing the perky blonde strutting beside him, he had a hard time containing his deep-rooted sensual need for her. Her hot body now tucked into tight-fitting jeans and a simple shirt, the sway of her hips and the swing of her tits had him rock-hard before they’d walked five paces. He wanted her badly, but she wasn’t giving in. From the moment they took off from JFK, she’d made it clear sex was off the table. Say what?
“Let’s go out tonight,” he offered when they finally arrived at their hotel.
“Let’s not,” she countered quickly, surveying the room.
Then her eye fell on the king-size bed. “Where are you going to sleep?”
He grinned. “I’m sleeping where you’re sleeping.”
She bit her lip. “I think not.”
“Ouch.” He grimaced, shaking his head. “Some honeymoon…honey.”
Her temper quickly came to a boil and she flung out her arms. “Come on, Mike, don’t be like this. We’re on a mission here. You didn’t really expect us to be like a real couple, did you?”
He cocked an eyebrow. “I’d kinda hoped to spend the honeymoon in bed.”
“Think again,” she muttered, and started toward the bathroom. When he waylaid her and clasped her in his arms, she pressed back against his chest. “I don’t think this is a good idea.”
He gave her a wolfish grin. “Let me see if I can’t change your mind.” Quick as a flash, he claimed her mouth with a kiss that was sure to quicken her pulse. His tongue demanded entrance, and from the way she pressed up against him, and hungrily parted her lips, he knew she wanted him just as badly as he wanted her. When he released her, her cheeks were flushed, and her eyes smoky with urgent need.
“I—I don’t think we should do this, Mike,” she repeated huskily. “We have the mission to think about. Sex is a distraction. We shouldn’t lose our heads. Not now. Not when there’s so much at stake.”
So that was the issue. “I don’t care,” he growled. “I want you so bad it’s killing me, and I can tell you feel the same way about me.”
Her eyes dipped to the front of his jeans, where his erection was clearly visible. She gulped, and quickly looked away, placing her hand on her chest.
“Really, Mike…” she muttered. “We can’t.”
“You’re serious,” he grunted, incredulous.
“I just don’t think we should get involved,” she explained. “It will only make us lose focus, and we both know how dangerous that can be.”
“Too late. We are involved,” he ground out, trying to hold it together.
“We’ve got more important things to do than…”
“Fuck? What could be more important than that?”
“You’re crazy,” she stammered. “I really think—”
“That’s your problem right there, darling,” he sneered. “You think too much. Don’t tell me you haven’t felt the insane chemistry—the attraction—the heat?”
She tilted up her chin. “No, I haven’t. I really don’t feel it,” she added when he let out a curt bark of incredulity.
They were standing so close her sweet scent had him all but drooling, the electricity they were generating powerful enough to light up the Eiffel Tower.
She gave him a pleading look that did little to cool him off. “Look, we need to focus on the mission, all right? Someone is out to kill me, and I don’t want to jeopardize our chances of catching the bastard by rolling around in the hay!”
“Fine,” he bit. “So what are you saying? No more sex until we catch the asshole? That it?”
“That’s it. Sex will muddle things up. In my experience it always does.”
“Oh, and your experience is vast, no doubt.”
“That’s a low blow, Petrov,” she snapped. “It makes perfect sense to keep a cool head when on a mission. It’s one of the cardinal rules of the game.”
“What about when you tried to seduce me back at the bar, huh? How did that fit into your rulebook, darling?”
She gritted her teeth. “I would never have let it come that far. The moment we were at the hotel I would have killed you.”
“Yeah, by planting your stiletto in my chest. I know all about that, Tonya.”
Her nostrils flared. “Fuck you. You know I was under strict instructions.”
“And you always follow orders, huh?”
“That’s right. You of all people should understand professional pride. When you got the kill order, you didn’t hesitate to take me out, did you?”
“I did the moment I saw you, princess. I never would have gone through with it, and you know it.” He shot her a hard stare, his eyes narrowing. “Would you?”
She flinched, and it was all he needed to know. Disgusted, he pushed away from her. “I’ll sleep on the couch. Maybe you’re right. Our mission parameters don’t include sex. Besides,” he added harshly, “I think I just lost my appetite.”
CHAPTER 13
“Stop acting like a child,” the woman was saying.
Armand tapped the small monitor, checked his equipment again, before frowning at the sound levels. He adjusted his headphones. The bug was fine, and so was the camera. So far so good.
“Only if you stop being so pigheaded,” the man said.
His voice came through loud and clear. Crystal clear, in fact.
Armand quickly went over the rest of his gear, then flicked his gaze back to the monitor. The bird’s eye view of the room showed the man pacing frantically, the woman seated on the bed. Excellent images, but then he prided himself on always using the latest and greatest equipment. He squinted at the screen, then zoomed in on the woman’s chest. Hard and puckered, he could see her nipples poking through her shirt. If she said she wasn’t interested, she was obviously lying through her teeth. He switched to the bulge in the guy’s pants and shook his head with a grin. He couldn’t remember having had a hard-on like that in years.
“I’m not pigheaded, I just don’t think it’s a good idea to get involved.”
“We are involved, princess, whether you like it or not.”
She heaved a deep sigh. “We should keep this strictly professional.”
“You’re crazy if you deny that what we have is real.”
This was some cool stuff. He quickly checked if everything was being recorded.
“So you don’t care that I want you—that you want me.”
“I don’t want you.”
“Oh, yeah, keep telling yourself that.”
The man suddenly was upon the woman, clasping her in his arms.
Armand’s eyebrows rose only fractionally. He’d seen a lot in his long career, and this was nothing. Still, he had to admit they had fire, these two. Real fire.
The kiss lasted longer than the last one, and when the guy released her, the woman visibly reeled. He chuckled. If the man had tried to make a point, he’d definitely made it.
He leaned back, steepling his fingers. Everything was set up perfectly. He had eyes and ears in the room, and now everything that was said between Mike Petrov and Emily Fox would be recorded and sent to Command.
All he had to do was make sure he didn’t miss a thing, and sit back and enjoy the show. If there was indeed going to be a show. But if these preliminaries were anything to go on, he had no doubt the fireworks were about to start.
Then his phone beeped and he picked it up from the desk.
“Oui, je suis là. Tout va bien.” He listened intently for a moment, then frowned. “Vous êtes sûr?” Was he kidding, or what? Then, when a short burst of conversation crashed into his eardrum, he held the phone away for a moment. “Je fais le nécessaire,” he spoke tersely. He’d do what needed to be
done.
He didn’t particularly enjoy plans being changed around on a whim like this. But he respected his superior, and as a consequence followed all orders to the letter, whether he liked them or not. Refusal was not an option.
He placed the phone on the desk and stared at the screen, where Mike and Emily were still engaged in verbal warfare. He sighed. Deep in his heart he was a romantic, and felt that this couple had a lot going for them.
In this cynical world, where love rarely flowered, he liked to see couples succeed past the initial mating rituals. Perhaps it was a weakness, or an ingrained part of his Gallic soul, but there it was. His own marriage had ended a few short months ago and now he lived vicariously through others. In his estimation Mike and Emily had a chance at something real.
He slipped on his gloves and set to work. If Command said the job must be done, better it be done quickly. In his opinion postponing the inevitable only led to sloppy work and ulcers.
Removing a small caliber revolver from its hiding place inside the small black suitcase, he started to disassemble the gun so he could carefully clean and lubricate it. Like with all other aspects of his profession, he took great pride in his expertise and the perfect working order of the tools of his trade.
On the screen and in his earphones he noticed that Mike had finally managed to convince Emily to have dinner with him.
Cool stuff, he thought. Perhaps they might even make it past dessert.
CHAPTER 14
Mike escorted an irate Emily along the ornate corridor to the bank of elevators. He thought she looked gorgeous in the white dress. The split revealed her long legs, and the satin hugged her shapely form to perfection. Though tasteful, the swooping neckline still revealed the swell of her breasts, and he resisted the caveman urge to drag her back to his cave. Well, her cave, actually, a fact she’d made perfectly clear. His place was on the couch, and she would take the bed. They wouldn’t be sleeping together, but would keep things strictly business.
Bullshit. He would make her change her mind and it wouldn’t take him more than a few hours to do so. Tonight they would both share that bed, and they wouldn’t get much sleep either. He knew how her body reacted to him, and that was all that mattered. Her mind might throw up hurdles, but her body betrayed her every time. She wanted him just as much as he wanted her. And even though she might play the cool professional now, he knew she would be his the moment he laid a hand on her again. The response she’d shown him was unmistakable, and no amount of logic could deny the simple fact.
He’d wanted to spend some time together in Paris, but she’d opted to stay in and go over their plan of campaign.
What a waste. They’d discussed it a million times. Now it was time to unwind, before their mission really kicked into gear. No one knew they were here, no one knew who they were, and the kingdom of Montinia would never see this coming, so why not enjoy their brief time in the City of Light?
As they stepped from the elevator, Emily’s eyes swept along the lobby of this five-star hotel. Not for the first time she wondered who was paying for all of this. Just like her, Mike was a lowly Mob grunt, and couldn’t possibly afford a hotel like this. He’d already paid for the flight and the hotel, and soon more bills would be piling up when they took another flight to the South of France and another expensive hotel in Montinia.
She was starting to feel really bad about this. He was spending money like crazy, and for what? For a woman who’d tried to kill him. A woman he didn’t even know, and who’d only slept with him once and had made it perfectly clear she would not do it again.
Where was the money coming from? Who was footing the bill? And why? They were all questions he refused to answer, and somehow she had the feeling she was walking into a trap. A very elaborate trap that someone was setting up and that soon would snap closed on her, and then it would be too late.
She’d decided she couldn’t trust anyone, not even Mike. If he couldn’t tell her the simple truth, who knew what other things he was hiding from her?
He’d suggested they go out and enjoy Paris. See the sights. Eiffel Tower, Montmartre, the Louvre, do some shopping on the Champs Elysées… she’d told him he was beyond crazy. They were here to figure out who was gunning for her, and if he thought she was going to spend her time shopping and sightseeing, he was delusional.
Under normal circumstances she might have liked to spend the day with him in Paris. Now? Not a chance. Sitting in a café sipping coffee? Christ, she couldn’t even sleep without waking up every five minutes, thinking someone was out there, watching her, waiting in the shadows. Perhaps she was paranoid. Perhaps they were really safe and their arrival had gone unnoticed, but she wasn’t taking any chances, and neither should he.
She finished checking the lobby for any sign of danger, and muttered, “All clear.”
He grinned, placing a hand to the small of her back. “Aren’t we the vigilant one?”
“Better than a bullet in the head,” she reciprocated with some heat.
“Better than this?” Without preamble he clasped her in his arms, and closed his lips on hers. Taken by surprise, she melted into the embrace, the kiss sending shivers of unexpected delight shooting up her spine, the wet heat of his mouth melting her bones. But then she was herself again, and jerked away. “We’ve got a job to do,” she hissed.
“That’s exactly what I’m doing,” he murmured, undaunted.
She shook her head. The man was simply incorrigible. And really, really hot.
Perhaps under different circumstances…
CHAPTER 15
Armand stepped from the elevator and his eyes scanned the lobby. He caught sight of the retreating backs of his targets as they headed into the restaurant. He thoroughly detested these interferences on the part of his employer. He understood the urgency, but that didn’t mean he had to like it. His original plan had been to sneak into their hotel room under the guise of darkness and to take things from there. More risky perhaps, but certainly a great deal less theatrical than what Command had concocted.
But then again Command had perfected theatricality to an art form so it was to be expected that he’d take this route. The only problem Armand had with these last minute changes were the risks involved. A well-planned campaign could quite easily turn into a major disaster when you started improvising. Especially when the targets were Mike Petrov and Emily Fox. With those two he wouldn’t get a second chance.
Of course he understood and respected tradition. When he’d gone through the motions some forty years before, the plan of campaign had run along the same lines as the current one, coincidentally in concert with Command himself, who’d only been a young man at the time. Just like Armand had been, he thought with a smile. Oh, how the years had flown by. A sense of loss momentarily blindsided him, the terrible ache in his heart not diminishing as time went by but only increasing, or so it seemed.
He tamped down on the ache. Now was not the time to let his emotions run rampant. He had a mission to focus on, the succession a matter that couldn’t be postponed any longer.
He glanced over to Mike and Emily. His employer was right. It was time. Though he could argue with the man about ways and means, the truth was that they had no time to lose. The sooner it were done, the better.
He touched the small revolver resting snugly in his pocket, the silencer screwed in place. He would pass by the table, pop her one, and quickly stalk off again. He’d briefly contemplated doing the guy as well, but had decided against it. He wanted to see the pain in Mike’s eyes as he watched the woman take a hit. It was essential—crucial even.
He discreetly followed from a distance as the couple circled their table, then took a seat. Satisfied, he took a firm grip on the weapon in his pocket.
He was the type of person who blended into a crowd, which was an essential part of his success. The perfect everyman. Average build, average face, average clothes. He could be anywhere without attracting suspicion, to the extent that people didn’t even
remember he’d ever been there in the first place. It was a quality he’d carefully cultivated. While Command dominated the stage, very much in the public eye, he kept to the wings, watching and waiting.
He angled the gun in his pocket so that the muzzle pressed up against the lining as he walked up to the couple’s table, his finger curled on the trigger. He needed but a single shot, the soft pop announcing his attempt on the woman’s life. She would do the rest, immediately slumping forward, making it look like she’d been the victim of a seizure of some kind. By the time foul play was suspected, he’d be long gone.
He slowly walked up to the woman, only three more tables separating him from her. His senses, honed by years of practice, seemed to pick up everything around him. The crunching of his feet on the parquet floor beneath, the soft light spilling from the wall sconces, the chink of crystal and the clatter of cutlery, the shouts of waiters moving to and fro carrying hot dishes, and the merry banter and laughter of the guests. Then he blocked it all out, focusing on one thing and one thing only: the exact spot where his aim would find flesh.
One more table separated him from the woman. Only four more steps. Three. Two. One. He angled the gun—squeezed the trigger. The sound was muffled, only a vague pop, drowned out by the noise. The woman slumped, and he was gone, absorbed by the hustle and bustle.
As the woman fell forward, he kept his eye on Mike, watching his expression change from surprise to horrified shock. In a flash, the man was on his feet. Satisfied, he averted his gaze. Perfect. Absolutely perfect. As he’d known from the very start.
He walked straight out the restaurant’s street exit without looking back.
Then he circled around and made his way over to the hotel entrance. Part one had gone off without a hitch. Now he had to prepare for part two. By the time the ambulance arrived, he’d be waiting, hidden in the background amongst the curious spectators, watching as the body of the woman was being carted out. This next part was as crucial as the first one. Now he would find out what his target was really made of.
