Disgusted, Duke slung the duffel onto the bench at the foot of his bed. His backpack slammed down on top of it.
Throw out the same glib lines, why don’t you? Lay on the smarmy grins and sexual innuendoes. What the hell are you? A walking, talking penis?
He didn’t want to answer that one. Still thoroughly disgusted with himself, he stripped and turned the shower to full blast. The hard, hot stream bulleted his face. Angry pellets needled his body. Bracing both hands against the tiles, he let the water pound into him.
The pummeling didn’t help. He was still blaming himself for Anna’s minor meltdown as he rummaged through the carryall for clean jeans and a shirt. He left the shirttail out and was working the buttons when he finally acknowledged the truth.
He was damned close to falling in love with Anna Solkov. Had been teetering on the edge since the first time he’d imagined those long, curvy legs wrapped around his. Only now he was more interested in the total package.
Interested, hell. He wanted her with a primal need that struck deeper and harder than any he’d felt before. Duke knew damned well that need was all tied up with the urgency of their mission and his raw, visceral fear this morning when he found out she’d wandered smack into Varno’s sights.
Yet...
Even without the adrenaline spike of their mission, Anna Solkov attracted him on more levels than any other woman he’d known. There were her smarts, for one thing. Duke didn’t know anyone else who could converse fluently in four languages and speak several variants of each one. Then there was her precise, logical approach to problems. She broke every issue down, analyzed the underlying factors and viewed the reassembled whole with a clear eye.
He admired both of those qualities, but in his warrior’s mind they paled in comparison to her courage under fire. She’d recognized Varno instantly. Knew she faced a stone-cold killer. Yet she’d maintained her cool, extricated herself from the dangerous situation and called for backup. To Duke, that kind of grit stirred feelings that went deeper than any physical attraction.
Or so he thought. Right up until Anna strolled out of her bathroom almost forty minutes later. Her face was flushed from the steamy heat of her bath. A towel was wrapped around her damp hair turban-style. And the hotel’s plush, terrycloth robe gave glimpses of just enough sleek, damp flesh to put an instant kink in Duke’s gut.
Chapter 8
Obviously unaware of her impact on his entire system, Anna dropped onto the sofa and tucked her legs under her. Duke made a concentrated effort to get his mind out of the gutter and off the question of what she might or might not have on under that robe. Remembering her surprising bout of tears aided in the effort.
“Did you check out the room service menu?” she asked.
“I did. It’s right there on the coffee table if you want to take a look.”
She leafed through the embossed leather folder and made a quick decision. “The borscht looks good to me. How about you?”
“Steak, medium, with all the trimmings.”
“If you’ll pour me a glass of red wine, I’ll call the order in.”
“Deal.”
While he opened one of the splits in the minibar, Anna punched the button for room service on the house phone. It must have been left on speaker, as a pleasant male voice floated into the room.
“How may I help you, Mr. Carmichael?”
“This is, uh, Mrs. Carmichael. We’d like to order dinner.”
“Yes, madam.”
Duke hid a smile as he poured wine for her and a pale, light lager for himself. She’d probably get used to that Mrs. about the time they turned in their wedding rings.
Unless they didn’t turn them in.
The thought came hurtling at him from out in left field. Way out in left field. Along with it came the reminder that he owed Anna an apology.
He handed her the wine and took one of the armchairs set at an angle to the sofa. Leaning forward, he rested his elbows on his knees and cradled the cold beer in his hands.
“Look, Anna, I’m sorry about earlier. I tend to come on a little strong at times.”
“A little?”
“You know it’s ninety percent hot air and ten percent wishful thinking, don’t you?”
“I’m not sure I agree with the proportions but I won’t argue the point.”
“Good, because the last thing I want is to make you uncomfortable.” The self-disgust he’d felt earlier rolled back with a vengeance. “I apologize for overplaying this husband bit and...”
And what? Turning what should have been a couple of casual pecks on the cheek into full-body contact? Taking advantage of her surprise to coax a response she never intended to give?
“For initiating physical contact,” he finished lamely. “It won’t happen again.”
“It won’t?”
“No, ma’am.”
He was dead serious. No twang. No drawl. She acknowledged as much with a small nod. Then she raised the glass, took a sip and knocked him back on his ass.
“That’s too bad.”
He blinked. “Come again?”
“I did some thinking while I soaked. There are a few things I need to say, too. First, I owe you an explanation for going all girly earlier.”
“Girly’s okay,” he said, scrambling to recover. “Girly’s good.”
“No, it’s not. And it’s not me. I can’t remember the last time I fell apart like that. Wait. That’s not true.”
She looked down at her wine and let out a slow breath.
“I do remember. It was three years ago last month.” She ran a fingertip around the rim of the glass. Once. Twice. “I’d just gotten engaged. Jeremy proposed over dinner at our favorite restaurant in Washington, D.C. I had an early briefing in the morning, so he left my apartment around midnight. He didn’t make it home.”
“What happened?”
She lifted her gaze, met his. The pain in her brown eyes stabbed into Duke like a bayonet.
“A drunk driver plowed across a median on the GW Parkway going more than ninety miles an hour. He slammed into Jeremy’s car head-on.”
“Christ!”
Duke could guess how little was left of her fiancé when they’d pried him out of the wreckage. He ached to scoop her into his arms and comfort her. Just comfort her. Ironic, given his recent promise to cease and desist all physical contact.
Unless...
His thoughts arrowed back to her previous that’s-too-bad comment. Did she want to be held? Want contact? He got his answer when she set aside her glass and looked him square in the eye.
“That’s why I said I was out of practice. I haven’t dated much in the past three years. I haven’t had sex at all.”
Good God! Three years? Duke gulped and tried to sound rational and sympathetic.
“Understandable. You’re still grieving.”
“Not as much as I was,” she replied with brutal honesty. “I don’t know if it’s the urgency of our mission or being here in the Ukraine or squeezing up next to you last night. But for the first time in a long time I feel alive and—” she pulled in a deep breath “—hungry.”
Carefully, very carefully, Duke avoided looking at the creamy flesh exposed by that deep drag.
“Also understandable,” he said with a calm he was light-years from feeling. “Situations like this generate intense emotions. You don’t need to be embarrassed by them.”
“I’m not embarrassed.”
Whoa! Remember. You are not a walking penis. You will not pounce. This situation called for understanding. Sympathy. Restraint.
“There’s a name for what you’re feeling.” He forced a friendly, professorial tone. “It’s called situational response. Sun Tzu wrote about it in The Art of War. He was referring to the thousands of factors that have to be assimilated in a combat situation to make the right decision but...”
“Oh, for pity’s sake!” Exasperated, she thunked her wineglass onto the coffee table. “Do you want to have sex or don�
�t you?”
Screw restraint!
“Yes, ma’am, I surely do. Any time, any place.”
“What?”
“That’s the motto of the air commandos,” he growled as he slammed his beer down on the side table. “Not the same as the combat controllers, but it sure works in this instance.”
Leaning forward, he wrapped a hand around her wrist. All the reasons this was a bad idea flashed into his head as he tugged her off the sofa and into his lap. He countered each of them just as swiftly.
They were in a secure location. He’d mapped out ingress and emergency egress routes. The doors were double-locked, the windows bolted, the drapes pulled. His comm device sat within easy reach, his weapons were less than ten steps away.
“I wanted you the first moment you sashayed into my line of sight, sweetheart.”
And he was back, Anna thought on a swift, jolting thrill. The cocky cowboy with the exaggerated drawl and the unmistakable invitation in his blue eyes. Oddly, those traits didn’t irritate her now. Just the opposite. Her blood pounding fast and hard, she hooked her arms around his neck.
“How long do you think we have before room service gets here?”
“Not long enough.” He nuzzled a spot just behind her right ear. “Nothing says we can’t fire up the APU while we wait, though.”
“APU?”
“Auxiliary power unit. Engines. F-16s.”
“Right.”
She knew what an APU was. Would have remembered that maintenance personnel rolled out the cart to jump-start jet engines in another moment or two. Sooner, if Duke hadn’t distracted her by trailing hot, stinging kisses from her ear to her chin to her mouth.
He nudged her lips open with his. Nudged her robe open a few moments later. His growl when he cupped her bare breast triggered an atavistic response in Anna.
Everything that was female in her seemed to spring to life. She ached for him, craved the feel of him on and over and in her. Her senses soared, registering vivid impressions. She breathed in the clean, soapy scent of his skin. Reveled in the feel of hard muscle under his shirt. Tasted hops and hunger on his breath.
She was wondering wildly what Sun Tzu had to say about situational responses in these particular circumstances when Duke’s thumb grazed her nipple. Small darts of pleasure streaked from her breast to her belly. Then he hiked her up a few inches and replaced his thumb with his mouth. The darts became fire-bursts of delight.
When he’d teased and tortured her nipple to an aching peak, he jerked the robe off her shoulder and bared the other breast. Half embarrassed, wholly aroused, Anna arched her back and offered herself like some pagan sacrifice.
The towel wrapped around her hair dropped to the floor in a damp heap. Her robe opened at the waist, and the sight of her no-nonsense cotton panties produced a smothered chuckle.
“These look like the ones my Granny Jones used to hang on the line.”
“Hey, I didn’t think I would need a thong when I packed for this little excursion.”
“Thongs?” His blue eyes lit with delight. “You wear thongs?”
“On occasion.”
Groaning, he angled his head and pressed his forehead against hers. “Oh, babe, you’re killing me here. We may not make it to the bedroom.”
“Well...”
The doorbell buzzed, and Anna spit out a curse. Duke’s oath was considerably more colorful.
“I’ll get it,” he groaned. “Don’t forget where we were.”
Like she could?
Still breathing hard, Anna drew the front of her robe together and followed Duke’s swift detour to the bedroom. When he returned, she knew the .45 rode under his shirt at the small of his back.
The reminder of where they were and why sobered her. So did his careful check through the peep hole before he opened the door. He followed that with a narrow-eyed assessment of the waiter who rolled in a trolley.
“Shall I set up at the table by the window, sir?”
“That’s fine.”
The prospect of dining with a view of Odessa’s lamplit main square sounded lovely to Anna. Duke disagreed. After he signed the check and added a tip that made the waiter thank him profusely, he nixed her suggestion they open the drapes.
“Too dark outside,” he said with a shrug as he reset the door locks, “and too bright inside. Urban guerrilla warfare 101. You never want to present an illuminated target.”
That pretty much doused the last of Anna’s sexual sizzle. Deflated, she tightened the belt of her robe and raked back her damp, tangled hair before joining him at the table.
He sensed the change in mood even before she lifted the cover on her bowl of soup. His mouth tipped into a wry grin.
“Something tells me I’m going to regret opening the door to that waiter. I should have just told him to leave the trolley in the hall.”
“Maybe.” She played her spoon around the dollop of sour cream floating atop the rich, red borscht. “And maybe it was just the time-out we needed. Correction, make that the time-out I needed.”
“Having second thoughts?”
“Second, third and fourth.”
“Ouch.” He faked a wince. “Doesn’t say much for my technique.”
His deliberate attempt to lighten the mood drew a reluctant smile. “Your technique is excellent, cowboy.”
“Good to know.”
Duke sawed off a corner of steak. It was tender and juicy and went down a whole lot easier than Anna’s change of heart.
“So the problem is...?” he asked, feeling her out.
“The problem is I let myself forget where we are, why we’re here.”
“I didn’t.”
Not entirely true. There were a few moments back there when the taste of her, the feel of her, blocked every conscious thought. Not real smart in these circumstances, but Duke had learned to trust the subliminal instinct that operated just below the consciousness level. God knew it had jerked him from deep sleep to full alert too many times not to.
“I have to be honest.” She laid the spoon aside, her borscht untasted. “There’s more.”
He figured there was. Judging by the way her brows straight-lined into a frown, he also figured he wasn’t going to like it.
“I decided to use you,” she confessed slowly, reluctantly. “As I told you earlier, I haven’t had sex in a long time. You... This situation...”
“Make you feel alive again. Yeah, I got it the first time.”
The sardonic reply set her back in her chair, frowning. It set Duke back, too. Who the hell was he to come all indignant at the idea of being used by a woman? And why should it dent his ego that this particular woman considered him a half step up from a vibrator?
For the second time that night, he delivered a swift mental kick to his own ass. What was with him? Anna had opened up for the first time. Given him a glimpse of the pain she’d lived with for three years. The least he could do was acknowledge that hurt.
“That came out wrong,” he said gruffly. “I appreciate you telling me about your fiancé. Not all scars are on the outside, and I’m glad yours are finally starting to heal.”
He considered adding that he was available 24/7 to speed the healing process. Just as quickly, he axed the thought. He was done dishing out sexual quips.
“Healing is a slow process, Anna. Mental or physical. You can’t force it. Some scars just take longer than others to fade.”
As he knew all too well.
“What you can do, though, is eat your soup before it gets cold. Then we’d better grab some sleep. I suspect our friends from Kiev will want an early start tomorrow morning.”
* * *
They did.
Duke’s bedroom was pitch-dark when the house phone on his nightstand jangled. He caught it on the second ring, noting the faintly glowing 6:32 a.m. on the digital clock-radio.
“Carmichael.”
A man answered in heavily accented English. “This is Special Agent Anatoly Yallin. When can
you and Ms. Solkov be downstairs?”
“Give us a half hour.”
“I will have a car waiting.”
“To take us where?”
“The Central Office of the Ministry of Internal Affairs here in Odessa. I will meet you there.”
Duke pulled on his jeans and went to tell Anna about the call. She was already up, tying the belt to her robe as she met him in the sitting room.
“I heard the phone. What’s up?”
“Our contact from Kiev wants an early session. Can you be ready to go in thirty minutes?”
“I can if you’ll make some coffee.”
He got the sleek European coffeemaker going, then went to splash water on his face and give his teeth a quick scrub. No time to shave or do more than shove his feet into his boots and his arms into the sleeves of the same shirt he’d dug out of the duffel last night. He tucked the tails in this time, though, and added his down vest for warmth.
After some debate, he secured his .45 in the room safe. MI headquarters would be swarming with officers, uniformed and plainclothes. Chances were they screened all visitors, probably had them go through full-body scanners. The pistol would set off all kinds of alarms.
So would the KA-BAR, but Duke wasn’t going out naked. Special Agent Yallin would just have to get the knife past the gatekeepers.
* * *
A call from the driver alerted Yallin to their arrival. When they pulled up at the entrance to the pale yellow, stucco-and-brick edifice that housed Odessa’s central police headquarters, he was waiting on the front steps.
Anatoly Yallin turned out to be a small, very intense man with a tilt to his eyes that suggested Tartar ancestry. He wore the gray-blue, military-style uniform of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The insignia on the uniform’s collar indicated he held the rank of major, and the sharpshooter’s badge mounted above a rack of ribbons indicated he hadn’t spent his career behind a desk. With him was another officer he introduced as chief of the Ukrainian Interpol Bureau.
“Please, come with us.”
As Duke had anticipated, access to the headquarters was through a security checkpoint that included a full-body scan. Anna went first. After sending her shoulder bag through the conveyor, she stepped into the booth and raised both arms. Duke watched the face of the uniformed cop behind the screen. The man’s smarmy expression said he was thoroughly enjoying the view.
Course of Action: Out of Harm's WayAny Time, Any Place Page 18
