by Geri Krotow
With Kyle, she knew that, in this moment, she was all that mattered to him, and he was all she thought about, all she wanted.
As her tongue licked and circled, her mouth sucked, and her fingers stroked his shaft, the sensitive area between his legs, he grew harder than she thought possible. When she thought his release was near, she prepared to accept it all, but his hands were on her, lifting her atop him.
“Condom,” he said between gasps for breath, and his arousal excited her more than she’d ever experienced. With shaky hands, she placed a condom from the night table on him, the mental effort to focus on the task almost too much. Finally, they allowed their instincts to take over.
Kyle’s hands grasped her hips and shoved her down on him with no preamble. None was needed, as she was so hot and wet from their leisurely foreplay.
There was nothing leisurely about how they coupled as he thrust up into her again and again, and she matched his every move not only likewise but also writhed her hips over and around him, clenching and unclenching him as she did so, delighting in every gasp she drew out of him. His hands reached for her as he moved, one between her legs, one on her breast, and when he pressed both her nipple and bud at her center, her climax thundered through her. Kyle’s cries sounded almost immediately, and even in the throes of the most sensual, lusty sex of her life, she was aware that he’d waited for her to come first.
Kyle always put her first.
* * *
Ludmila Markova knew she was in big trouble with Ivanov. The mark hadn’t picked up the USB before the storm hit, and now no one but she had access to the spreadsheets. Ivanov told her that she was personally responsible for making sure the shipment arrived in Silver Valley as planned, and that his dealers received what they expected without a hitch.
But the storm was bigger than this spoiled country was used to. Or the trains. Nothing was moving in the town, or in central Pennsylvania. She knew better than to argue with Ivanov. She’d told his number two that she’d make sure everything worked out. And knew she was lucky that they didn’t have anyone else to rely on, or they’d have killed her on the spot. ROC suffered fools almost as infrequently as FSB had. Meaning never.
Her rathole trailer shook with the force of the wind. At least in Moscow the concrete edifices that passed for apartments were strong against the elements. The windows might crack but the building would never shake like this.
She sipped the hot tea with lemon and honey, something she only allowed herself in the trailer. It was too Russian, would make her stick out too much in this average American town that seemed to live on coffee. As she drank the beverage, she fingered the piece of paper she’d taken from the library information desk. Just in case.
It was what the Americans called a “flyer,” a public invitation to attend an annual library fund-raising gala, which she surmised was a dance of some sort. There would be charity activities involved somehow. Most important, it was coordinated by none other than Portia DiNapoli, whose name and email were indicated as the RSVP point. The event coincided perfectly with the first of five drops by their suppliers down south. It made her final actions in Silver Valley more complicated, more risky. Ensure the heroin distribution and kill DiNapoli. But challenge was her specialty. She allowed herself to smile. The shipment via rail had been her idea, and despite the storm, which no one could have predicted, it was perfect for what Ivanov wanted. A crushing hand of control over the heroin trade on the East Coast.
She looked out the small, dirty trailer window as the storm intensified, and she made mental preparations for keeping herself warm. Not only in this hovel, but when she went out to explore a bit. To the place she’d followed the man who didn’t leave the librarian’s side.
Ivanov and ROC still didn’t know that she had a potential witness. Two, actually. The librarian, and the man who’d knocked her off the tracks. The same man who’d been in the diner, and while his gaze had lingered a beat too long on her, she was certain he hadn’t immediately recognized her in the wig. When his memory put her with the waitress, it’d be too late. She was going to kill him, along with Portia. If Ivanov knew about her probable witnesses, he’d kill her. There was always someone else to coordinate his heroin trade.
The man always with Portia DiNapoli was a worthy adversary, as he’d demonstrated at the homeless shelter. She assumed it had been him, keeping her from what she’d hoped to be an easy kill. No matter. His devotion to keeping the librarian safe was his Achilles’ heel, and she was at her best when stomping on someone’s weakest spot.
Her teacup was empty, the lemon slice withered and cold. Time to begin her plan. First she had a couple to put on edge. Let them know they weren’t as safe and sound as they thought.
* * *
“Smart thinking on the coffee.” He sipped the espresso she’d made with an old-fashioned Italian percolator on the gas-burner stovetop. He’d watched her light a match and then the burner, the electric starters rendered useless by the limited power.
“We’re lucky the owners had this pot or I’d have had to make pour-over with the grounds.”
“That would be fine, too.” Anything with her would be fantastic, in fact. He had a killer to catch, a heroin shipment to interdict and ROC to put a dent into. Normally he’d be wired for sound, unable to do anything but focus on the mission until he successfully ripped all of his targets apart.
But now there was Portia.
“The storm’s stalled.” Portia scrolled through her phone. “They don’t know when it’ll move out of here. We could be stuck in this house for days!”
He should care, be concerned about the case, the shipment, Markova, ROC.
All he saw was the beautiful woman standing in front of him.
“Portia.”
“Hmm?”
“Put down your phone. Let’s go back to bed.”
Chapter 16
Sleeping next to a man was a lovely thing. When the man was Kyle King, it was heaven. Portia didn’t want to open her eyes, so she snuggled in deeper against him, her body the most relaxed it’d been in months.
She had Kyle’s tongue to thank. Unable to remain completely at rest once that thought entered her mind, she carefully rolled onto her back, keeping his arm around her waist. She looked up at his face as he slept. The day’s growth of whiskers had been rough against the inside of her thighs, but she’d gladly taken the love injury. And how had he known to use his fingers at the exact right time, to make what his tongue did seem like rookie moves? Desire woke up, deep in her belly, and she smiled, decided to wait as long as it took for him to wake up. She’d watch him until then, get more turned on until he opened his eyes.
A powerful gust of wind rattled the windows, and the French doors that led to the room’s balcony shook as if someone was trying to open them.
Portia dragged her gaze from Kyle’s gorgeous sleeping face to look through the window. She’d left the blinds up last night, wanting to see the progress of the storm. With the driving snow, there was no chance of anyone seeing inside. Which made it a shock for her to see a person at the window, looking in.
* * *
Portia’s nails dug into his forearm like a drowning person’s death grasp. Kyle opened his eyes, immediately alert, and looked to where her gaze had frozen.
With no preamble, he took them both over the side of the bed furthest from the window, and grabbed one of the pistols he’d positioned on the nightstands—one on each for just such an instance.
Portia scrambled to her knees and crouched as he did behind the bed.
“Did she see us?” Her voice trembled but to her credit she remained at his side, didn’t scream or try to run from the room.
“No telling. And we can’t be sure it’s Markova.” Though he’d recognize her shape anywhere. He’d tracked her for months at this point.
You screwed up in the diner. He mentally shoved the accusat
ion away. He couldn’t change the past but he could keep Portia safe now.
“Well, since she’s out to kill me, I think it’s a logical conclusion.” Portia’s wit was something he loved about her, but right now he recognized it for what it was. Nervous chatter.
“Shh.” He leveled his weapon at the door, and saw the intruder try to peer in. “I agree with you. It’s Markova.” Who else would venture out in this storm and attempt a break-in, knowing Portia wasn’t alone? Because if Markova figured out where Portia was, it had to have been via Kyle’s movements. He had to review what he’d done, where he’d been, to figure out how she knew. But not now.
Proof of identity came when the climber removed their black balaclava, probably to see the lock she needed to pick better. Her pale blonde hair fell forward. No red wig this time. Son of a bitch—just as he’d suspected, she’d been the waitress in the diner. She must have followed him out here right afterward. He’d been certain he didn’t have a trail, but with the visibility so low, it was conceivable she’d followed him with her lights out, using his to guide her.
And then she’d waited until she’d known they were asleep to make her move.
“It’s her, Kyle.”
“Yes.” He took his phone from the dresser, pressed his finger to it to unlock it and then handed it to her. “Here. Call Josh—he’s in my recent calls. Tell him what’s going on. And once you hang up, take the rifle from underneath the bed and be prepared to use it.”
“You put a rifle under the bed I was sleeping on?”
“Of course.”
As she called and spoke to Josh, Kyle watched Markova work the lock. The storm raged and yet to her, a native Muscovite, it was business as usual.
“Josh says he can’t get anyone out here right now but he’s confident you’ll take care of her.”
“He’s right.” He didn’t take his focus off Markova. “I want you to take the rifle and get out of this room. Go to the storage room on the top floor like we practiced. Lock yourself in and don’t come out until I get you.”
“No way! You might need backup.”
“I can’t do this with you right now, Portia. Get. Out. Of. Here.” At his last word, the French doors clicked open, followed by huge double bams as the wind blew them against the walls.
Portia escaped just in time, and Kyle was pretty sure Markova hadn’t seen her. It didn’t matter if she did, because he was taking her down, now.
“Freeze.” She did, in the catlike pose she’d assumed on the railroad tracks with Portia. It was a prestrike stance, meant to appear defensive but was, in fact, preparation for a lethal move.
“I will shoot you.” He didn’t reveal he knew who she was, keeping the power balance of information on his side.
“You would have already put the bullet between my eyes if you meant to.” She didn’t try to hide her accent, unlike at the diner and the times he’d seen her come and go at the library.
“Put your hands over your head and get to your knees.” He didn’t have cuffs but he had zip ties in the pockets of his cargo pants, next to the bed. They’d do until SVPD arrived.
“Never.” She sprang into action, but instead of attempting to take him out as he’d expected, she ran toward the bedroom door that led to the inside hallway and disappeared. Once around the corner, he heard a weapon fire.
Portia.
He ran into the hall, his weapon drawn. He expected to face down Markova.
But she was ahead of him, opening the sliding doors to the main living room’s outside deck. He ran after her and watched as she slipped through the open door, onto the deck, and disappeared over the edge. Kyle ran to the railing, the assault of wind and driving snow fighting his every movement. Looking down, he saw where she’d dropped and rolled. Of course she was trained to scale any height, but the twenty-foot drop was a bit much. Except that it was shorter by at least four or five feet, thanks to the storm. To his eye, it looked like as much as six or eight feet of snow had drifted up against the back of the house, which overlooked the mountains. Her silhouette was quickly swallowed up by the blinding snow.
It didn’t mean she was gone, though. Markova was still on the property. He had two options—jump here and risk injury, or go out the front door and cut her off before she reached the main road again. There was no hope for survival in the woods, not in these conditions.
“That was easy.” Portia’s shout startled him and he stared at her. It was a full second before he noticed the bloodred stain on her pajama top.
“What the hell are you doing outside the storage room?” Didn’t she realize that Markova was no match for her? And right now, challenging his every skill. “She shot you.”
Portia shot him a wan smile. “Grazed me, is all. I know, it’s probably the adrenaline keeping me from hurting or losing it about now. I was hiding behind the kitchen island and had a clear shot of her, but she saw me and fired first. I know I should have listened to you but I thought you’d need backup. She’s not going to let you take her down easily. It’s me she wants, Kyle.” Portia was shouting over the wind, her thin pajamas flattened against her body in the gale. A sound lower than the wind reached them and they both turned to see Markova speeding away—on a snowmobile.
Kyle hustled Portia back into the house with him and shut the sliding door behind them, cursing that the bedroom French door didn’t have an interior deadbolt as this one and all the ground floor doors and windows did. The one fatal security flaw in the huge home and it had to be on the balcony of the room Portia slept in. He’d overlooked it and failed her. Worse, she could have been shot through the heart if Markova hadn’t been in such a hurry to avoid capture.
“Let’s get your wound checked.”
Portia lifted the fabric from her shoulder, stretched to look at the wound. She’d been correct, it was a graze, but it was starting to sting now that they were back inside. It needed to be cleaned and bandaged.
“Does it hurt?”
“More like a sting. Nothing I can’t handle. Don’t you think we should double-check the house for any other place Markova tried to break in?”
“Yes—let’s do a quick check and then I’m bandaging that for you.” As they walked, he called Josh and reported what had happened, what direction he’d seen Markova head in. Josh promised to send an SVPD unit out as soon as it was safe, but warned Kyle that it could take a while, depending on the winds and visibility. And since Kyle was the best protection Portia had, if another incident got called in, it might take priority.
Kyle wasn’t feeling like he was the best protector for Portia. Not by a long shot. He looked at her face, checked her pupils. She was okay. It was just a graze, and she’d handled herself well, considering she’d blown off his orders.
“I’m going to check the garage to make sure she didn’t steal the snowmobile from us.”
“I’ll stay here.” Portia’s expression reflected the contrition he knew she’d never verbalize, so he let it go.
“Not this time.” He shot the French door an uneasy look. If Markova made it up the side of the house once, she’d do it again. As much as he felt certain he’d scared her away, he couldn’t trust his gut, not after letting his physical need for Portia distract him from keeping vigilance on the house.
“Stay with me.”
* * *
Portia did as Kyle asked, and stayed with him as they searched the bottom floor of the house first. In the garage, they found the snowmobile and doors intact.
“I’m glad she didn’t get in here. We may need the snowmobile,” Kyle said as they left the garage and began to inspect the main floor for any evidence of a break-in.
“She was crazy to attempt this, in the storm. You’re not thinking of going after her, are you?”
“Of course I am. But I won’t.” The grim line of his mouth was a far cry from the expression on his generous lips that had bro
ught her to climax less than an hour ago.
“Because you’re afraid she’ll kill me.” Portia stopped at the huge picture windows, stared at the snow blowing sideways. Visibility was still at a minimum. Her shoulder was starting to ache and she knew she’d have to draw attention to taking care of it. To her mistake, the error that could have cost Kyle his life, too, and the entire LEA mission. Shudders hit her and while her brain knew it was a delayed reaction, an accumulation of the hell she’d faced ever since the train tracks, she couldn’t stop it.
“Hey.” He was next to her in a flash, cupped her face in his hands. “Yes, I’m terrified she could have hurt you more seriously. You saved yourself, you know.”
“I’m a librarian, Kyle, an information specialist. Fighting bad guys in person, with a weapon, isn’t one of my talents.”
“It is now.” He kissed her forehead and took a step back. “Let’s get the inspection finished so that I can tend to your scrape.”
She followed him room by room, covering each window and door, but there were no further signs of a break-in. They found a first aid kit and sat in the master bath on the wide edge of a large garden tub as Kyle began to clean and bandage her shoulder.
Portia fought the urge to put her head on his shoulder, to sink into the strength of his embrace. The sting of antiseptic made her wince. To distract herself from the pain, she focused on the case. “How did she know the master bedroom door was the one that wasn’t as secure as the rest of the house?”
Kyle met her eyes briefly before resuming his ministrations to her graze. “She didn’t. It was an educated bet, at most. She’s been out here, watching the house, seeing which rooms light up and when. Then she saw the balcony at the back part of the house, where the big bathroom windows are, and took a chance. With no stairs attached to the small bedroom deck, she knew there was a good chance that the door might not be as secure.”
