He would never have believed the woman he’d first met—the Dr. Glasov who’d been so uptight and nervous around him—could turn out to be so broad-minded and demanding in bed. She’d been tentative at first, true enough, but as soon as she’d figured out he’d go along with whatever she wanted without being judgy, she’d turned into someone different entirely.
And the dirty talk… Another total surprise. He’d never have imagined a clinical recitation of body parts could be so erotic. Having it come from the mouth of a well-educated pixie made it that much more of a rush.
However, one thing about her hadn’t changed despite all the intimate things that they’d done together—or maybe because of them. Ultimately, sweet, pretty Irina Glasov was no one-night stand. He should be ashamed of himself for sleeping with her. Part of him was. Unfortunately, the part controlling his brain where she was concerned had no discernible conscience, because it said he’d do it all over again. Just the thought of her mouth on him had him hard.
He should also drag his ass out of bed and take another walk around her property and at least pretend to be doing his job. It would give him a chance to clear his head too. But she had a tendency to overthink everything. Did he want to risk her waking up in bed alone and getting the wrong idea about what last night had been?
What idea, exactly, did he want her to get?
Now he was the one overthinking the whole situation. She was direct. That was one of the reasons he found her so appealing. He’d make her breakfast again. After that they could talk. She was smart. Another reason he liked her. She’d understand that his work had to come first, and why he had no room in his life for a relationship. The altercation at the beach yesterday had reinforced that for him. He wasn’t introducing Irina into his world. A few pop-ups were nothing compared to the potential threats his work might bring down on her, and he simply wasn’t the kind of man who could trust her safety to others.
She stretched, rolling to her back and out of his arms. She raised her elbows over her head and stretched as she opened her eyes. She cast him a slow, sleepy smile.
“Wow,” she said. “You’re even gorgeous first thing in the morning. How is that fair?”
That smile turned his insides to mush. “You’re one to talk, beautiful.” He bent his head for a kiss. “Besides, it isn’t quite morning. The sun isn’t up.”
“What would you like to do until then?”
He had a list. It started with tasting the rosy tip of the breast peeking at him from above cream-colored sheets. Then he’d work his way down her smooth skin and that flat length of belly. He dragged his attention back to her eyes, all slumberous and sexy. There was no mistaking what she had on her mind.
A tickle of wind stirred the curtains at the window. “We should probably discuss a few things first.”
He couldn’t believe he’d just said that.
Neither, apparently, could she. “You mean right now?”
His timing was so, so bad. He should have waited a half hour before starting this conversation. His conscience, however, had finally caught up with him. Boundaries needed to be set. He couldn’t take this any further without making sure she understood where it was headed. She deserved so much better from him.
Now that he’d started it, however, he didn’t know what to say next.
“If this is the requisite ‘Let’s keep things friendly, we’re here for a good time,’ speech, then there’s no need to bother,” she said before he could pull his own thoughts into order. “We lead completely different lives. We both already know this isn’t going anywhere. Why not just enjoy it while it lasts?”
At first he couldn’t figure out what the hell she was talking about. Then it finally clicked. He was the one getting the ‘morning after’ speech. And a few things began to make sense. They’d had sex on her sofa. They’d used his room, not hers, for the rest of the night. She was keeping things between them as impersonal as possible given all that they’d done, and considering she’d cried his name out. Twice. So he couldn’t put his finger on why he felt so insulted. She was offering him what he’d said he wanted.
Or she might be playing some game of her own. She was a woman. And she was smart.
Then again, it wasn’t as if an intelligence officer was some great catch for a woman with a couple of masters degrees, a PhD, and a career way more impressive than his.
“When are you going to report the botnet?” she was asking.
“The what?” He couldn’t keep up. His head was in two different places. It didn’t help that her bare toes were tickling the back of his calf.
She wrapped a strand of his hair around her finger and tugged on it, reclaiming his attention, drawing his face closer to hers. “Last night? The RBN?”
Oh. That. “I’ll do it this morning.”
He’d call Dan at home on his personal line and find out what the next move should be. He doubted if anything would change. Internet security was an issue for their counterpart, CSEC, but no intel was getting passed on to other departments until the director approved it. The botnet intrusion had come in on her personal computer, not her work one, and she swore she didn’t keep anything sensitive on it, so national security wasn’t an issue.
On the other hand, CSIS had an interest in Irina and there was enough going on with her to warrant his sticking around.
He wasn’t quite ready to give up whatever this was they had going on between them either, regardless of what her game might be.
She disengaged herself from his arms and legs and slid from his bed, her tousled hair an adorable, tangled mess around her shoulders, her bare skin a warm, pearly glow in the watery light. She looked at the floor, but if she was searching for her clothes, they were spread all over the living room where they’d tossed them last night. He’d love to hear her say penis again, but suspected he’d already ruined any possibility of that happening right now. He needed to learn to keep his big mouth shut. This was why he stayed away from nice girls.
“Where are you going?” he asked, holding out hope.
“Last night was fun, but since I’m awake already, I’ve got to get some work done today.” She crooked her hair behind her ear, all curvy hips, slender legs, and perky breasts. “It’s my turn to cook breakfast too.”
She sauntered from the bedroom, those bare, sexy hips swaying, leaving the door open behind her. He remembered how her pink thong looked, nestled between those firm round cheeks, and his groin shot him a reprimand for the cold shower in the morning forecast.
He rolled to his back and folded his arms behind his head. He heard the door to her bedroom close, the latch making a loud and definitive click. He got the message. Her room was off-limits.
Well, they’d established those boundaries they needed. And he didn’t like them.
* * *
While Irina cooked breakfast, Kale got dressed. Rain continued to fall, steady but not hard, and the weather was warm so that was no excuse to keep him inside. He’d take a quick look around, then make that phone call to Ottawa he’d promised her.
She had a nice piece of property, private but not too secluded, with a tidy back yard and a patio off the kitchen, even though he didn’t like that it was surrounded by trees. He’d searched them more than once but the hordes of bloodthirsty mosquitoes made it an unlikely location for anyone to set up surveillance. He’d concentrated more on the road out in front where the original photos appeared to have been taken.
The rain had mellowed the mosquitoes this morning so he decided to take a more thorough trek through the bushes. He stepped over bushy ferns and around fallen tree trunks, the ground mulchy and soft. Water dripped from the branches and leaves overhead. It wasn’t long before his jeans and shirt were soaked through and his shoes were sopping so that he slogged with each step.
Nobody in their right mind would be hiding in this swamp. There were easier ways for a peeping Tom to keep an eye on Irina.
As he turned to head back to the house he glanced up and took a g
ood look through the branches. A tiny black shadow, out of place against the gray-white trunk of a birch, caught his attention. He stood beneath the tree and stared into the thick mass of foliage above his head. The sky was almost completely obliterated. The view of the house, however, was not.
His chest constricted. Someone had set up a surveillance camera and it was trained on Irina’s front window. His own words, so cocky and confident, came back to haunt him.
Learn to relax, Irina. Let go of those inhibitions.
The things they’d done. That he’d talked her into doing…
His first angry instinct was to climb the tree, tear down the camera, and smash it to pieces. His second, more professional, reaction was to leave it right where it was. If the camera was digital and had its video rolling twenty-four/seven, the damage was already done. The best thing to do was wait and see what images turned up where—and better yet, who might come back to retrieve their equipment.
But what was best sure as hell didn’t feel right.
He owned this disaster. He’d really thought some geeky guy with more brains than common sense was behind those photos of her. As a result he hadn’t taken her concerns seriously enough. When combined with the online harassment, and the trail to the RBN, this was some serious shit.
That still didn’t make it a matter for CSIS. She didn’t work at home on the project that had sparked their interest in her. She kept it isolated on a dedicated computer. Everything in that respect was secure.
Somehow, he doubted if any of that was going to make her feel better about this. She’d trusted him and he’d let her down, and in the worst way imaginable. She was going to kill him when she found out. He couldn’t blame her.
He trudged through the trees and shrubs to the house, his stomach tied in tight little knots. Instead of going inside he leaned against the far end of the brick bungalow so that he was partially out of the rain. From there he called his team leader. He didn’t dare chance having Irina overhear this particular conversation.
“It’s 8:27 on a Sunday morning,” Dan barked when he answered. “This had better be good.”
“I’d like to preface this conversation by reminding you that officially, I’m on vacation,” Kale said.
There was a long stretch of silence. “Tell me this doesn’t involve criminal charges against you.”
Kale filled him in. When he was done he could hear Dan taking deep breaths on the other end of the line. That wasn’t good.
“I am so pissed off right now I don’t even know where to begin. What part of ‘Dr. Glasov is important’ did you not understand?”
He went with the only defense he could think of and it wasn’t great. “I thought it was her work CSIS was interested in.”
“It is. But if she’s got it all on a dedicated and secure computer, where do you suppose someone might go to get at the information they can access? Why do you think someone might be trying to intimidate her?”
Cold sweat mingled with the rain dripping down the back of Kale’s neck. “Is she in danger?”
“How the hell should I know? You’re the one watching her. When you aren’t fucking her, that is.”
When Dan started swearing it meant things were bad. Very bad. “What do I tell her?”
“You tell her nothing. We don’t want to tip anyone off that we found that camera.” There was a bit of a pause, as if Dan were trying to decide how much to reveal. “Someone in the government is stealing Canadian weapons systems parts. Now it looks like they’re going after sensitive defense information too. And this is the second connection to the RBN that I’ve heard about. Do you think you can convince her to go a little bit deeper?”
“You mean get her to hack into the RBN? I’d say the chances of that happening are slim. She wouldn’t do it last night.”
She knew as well as they did that the RBN had connections to the Russian Mafia. If she still had family there they’d be vulnerable. He had no idea how close she might be to them, or how she’d feel if they were threatened because of something she’d done.
“We need to figure out who’s behind those military thefts. And if they’re tied to Dr. Glasov somehow. The fear here in Ottawa is that the RBN connection goes pretty high up the food chain.” Meaning straight to a minister’s office. “We’re trying to keep that piece of intelligence contained.” Kale could almost hear the wheels spinning as Dan sifted through everything on the other end of the line, assessing the potential complications. “About that other thing… If video footage of the two of you doing the nasty does show up, whether he likes it or not, the director might have to go to CSEC for help to keep it from spreading around the Internet. If that exacerbates his current problems you’re going to hear about it. There’s a strong possibility Dr. Glasov can do as much by way of containment as CSEC can, though. She’d have the greatest incentive to keep it private.”
Kale closed his eyes. “She says cybersecurity isn’t her area.”
“That doesn’t mean she’s not as good as, or better than, whoever set up that camera.”
He hoped Dan was right. The botnet trail she’d followed last night had taken her hours. She’d said it was professional.
He also hoped not telling her about the camera was the right thing to do. He did know it was the option he preferred, because right now he was very afraid of how she’d react. With a little luck it hadn’t recorded anything and he was worrying for nothing.
“Do everyone a favor and keep your dick on a leash from now on,” Dan advised him. “I like it better when I have to handle complaints about you fighting. Jesus.” He hung up.
Kale slid his phone into his pocket. He thumped the back of his head against the brick wall. Last night might have been amazing, but this morning blew chunks.
* * *
Irina shut off her computer and rolled her chair away from her desk. Her office window overlooked the parking lot. She could her car four stories below, not far from the commissionaire’s station, and knew Kale would be patiently waiting for her, observing everyone who came and went from the building.
For the past two days she’d made him wait an extra two hours out of spite.
Even though three full days had passed, and they were now well into their fourth, she continued to fume. He’d told her very little about the report on the botnet he’d made to Ottawa, only that he’d spoken to someone and he was to continue to stay close to her. Those instructions, apparently, didn’t include spending any more nights with them naked.
She might have pretended to be OK with him starting Sunday morning off suffering regrets from the night before, but in reality, she wasn’t. Being his one-night stand she could handle. The sex had been good. Incredible, in fact. She’d gotten the distinct impression he’d thought it was too. But did she come across as so desperate that he immediately assumed one night of great sex with him meant she expected some sort of commitment?
How offensive was that?
Tonight she had no plans to stay late at the office simply so she could avoid him. Even she had her limits when it came to how much she worked and her brain needed a break. Cooking was her way to decompress.
She gathered her purse and her laptop, locked the office door behind her, and made a mad dash for the elevator, the heels of her shoes clicking like machine-gun fire against the tiled floor. She squeezed between the gleaming doors a split second before they slid shut.
The department’s administrative assistant, a pretty blond girl named Christine, sporting a high ponytail and the smoothest complexion Irina had ever seen, was the only other occupant.
She smiled at Irina.
“Hi, Dr. Glasov. Can I add you to the list of people going bowling Friday night?” Irina’s confusion must have shown on her face. “The retirement party for Tim Bailey?” the girl prompted. “I need to order the pizza.”
Tim Bailey was one of the company’s mail deliverymen, and hugely popular with staff throughout the company, and no, Irina hadn’t really been planning to go. Pizza a
nd bowling weren’t really her thing. She started to give her regrets when she had a much better idea. Regardless of how annoyed she was with Kale right now, he had a job to do. The sooner he did it the faster he’d be out of her house. This was an opportunity for him to meet the people from her workplace without being too obvious about it.
“Would Tim mind if I brought a date?”
Christine’s cheeks dimpled. “Not if your date’s a good bowler.”
Irina couldn’t say for certain whether he was or not, but she’d be surprised if the answer was no. Kale Martin did everything well. Except, it would seem, mornings after.
“I can guarantee he’ll be better than me. I haven’t bowled since I was eleven or twelve.”
Kale was out of the car and walking toward her, god-like and golden, the personification of Thor, the second he saw her exit the building. She had a sudden and very vivid recollection of how he’d looked naked.
How he’d felt.
“That’s your boyfriend?” Christine asked, wide-eyed with respect. “Is he a model?”
“Surfer,” Irina contradicted her. “I know. He’s pretty, right?” Then she remembered to stick to their cover story. “Actually, he’s a teacher.”
“I bet his detentions are totally worth it.”
Christine stayed by Irina’s elbow, clearly expecting an introduction. She was very pretty and Kale was a flirt. Irina wondered how he’d react.
With indifference, as it turned out.
“Hey, babe,” he said to Irina. “How was your day?” He took her bag from her, as considerate as always, but they had an audience today so he bent his head and kissed her, too. He seemed more willing to get into character in public where it was safe.
Three nights of frustration simmered inside her. It was possible his libido wasn’t as active as hers, but she didn’t buy it. Neither, however, could she explain his sudden and complete lack of physical interest in her. She could think of nothing she’d done wrong—meaning she’d spent far too much time analyzing events.
Her Spy to Hold (Spy Games Book 2) Page 9
