Her Spy to Hold (Spy Games Book 2)

by Paula Altenburg

  She came to a decision. No more overthinking. She wasn’t used to all this angry frustration. He didn’t have to sleep with her again if he didn’t want to, but he didn’t get to make her feel cheap about it either. If she was a one-night stand, then he was a dog. She leaned into the kiss, rising on her toes as she slipped her fingers into the base of that delectable man bun. She ran her tongue across the seam of his lips. He wasn’t the only one who could play to the crowd.

  His eyes, locked on her face, filled with rueful amusement as they pulled apart. He knew what she was trying to do. But she also detected a satisfying level of smoldering heat. The attraction was still there. So what was his problem?

  She’d almost forgotten Christine, who was watching their interaction with blatant interest, unable to mask her disbelief as her bright gaze shifted between them. Irina could well imagine what she was thinking. What on earth could a man as gorgeous as Kale see in the studious and dull Dr. Glasov?

  She made the introductions.

  Christine offered Kale her hand and it disappeared inside his much larger fist. Her dimples flashed. “Pleased to meet you. Dr. Glasov signed you both up for bowling Friday night, so I guess we’ll meet again.”

  “She did, did she?” Blue eyes again fixed on Irina. Dark blond eyebrows lifted. “Aren’t you full of surprises?”

  And wasn’t he full of—

  He made that sound so suggestive. Her temper spiked again. She wrestled it under control. Kale Martin pushed every last button she owned simply by being himself.

  “I had no idea you bowled,” he said once they were inside the car.

  “I don’t. But it gives you a chance to meet a few of the people I work with.” She told him about the retirement party.

  He turned the air conditioning to high. Cold air shot from the dash. “I thought it was written somewhere that computer geeks are crappy at sports? How likely is it that anyone even close to your level in the company will be there?”

  “I have no idea,” she had to admit. “But for your information I went to university with an Olympic swimmer and she graduated third in our class, so I think that stereotype’s been disproven. Besides, bowling isn’t a real sport.”

  “If you want to get invited again you should probably keep that opinion to yourself. Serious bowlers can be touchy.”

  “I’ll take my chances. I don’t really see myself becoming a regular.”

  He pulled up to the last set of lights before they turned onto the highway, tapping his thumbs on the steering wheel as they waited for them to change. The light shifted to green and the car surged forward, merging into a steady stream of afternoon traffic.

  “Can we make a quick stop at the grocery store?” she asked. “I want to pick up a few things for dinner.”

  “I took care of that already. I’ve got a casserole warming in the oven.”

  So much for decompressing this evening. Now she had nothing but work to distract her. The evening promised to be long and uncomfortable. She should have stayed at the office.

  Fifteen minutes later, they were home.

  The smell of fresh-cut grass greeted her as she stepped from the car. He’d mowed her lawn and tackled the jungle of overgrowth around the border of her property. A tangle of brush had been neatly stacked in one corner of her yard.

  “You didn’t need to do that,” she said when she saw it, at a loss for words. “But thank you,” she hastily added.

  “I’ve been bored out of my mind.” She didn’t quite know how to take that and he must have sensed it. A slight smile touched his lips as if he knew where her thoughts had headed. “With my own company,” he added. “Your reading material is over my head. Besides.” He closed the car door and rested his arms on the roof as he spoke to her across it. “I need to be doing something physical in my downtime. Maybe tomorrow I’ll head to the beach.”

  “You shouldn’t go surfing alone.” Her response was automatic. Her disapproval, difficult to hide. He was far too cocky and self-assured for his own good.

  “I’ve been surfing alone since I was eleven. And it’s really doubtful the beach will be empty. But thank you for your concern.” He continued to watch her over the roof of the car. He looked as if he had something more he wanted to say, then thought better of it.

  Irina headed for the house before she blurted out what she had on her mind instead. She might not have a whole lot of experience with men like him, but she wasn’t completely naïve. She didn’t believe he was no longer interested in her. Not when he looked at her in a way that shot bolts of electricity straight to her mons veneris.

  Something had to be wrong.

  Maybe she should be worried, not angry.

  Dinner was quiet. After the table was cleared and the dishes were done he prowled restlessly around the house, no longer as easygoing as he’d seemed to be at first. This was like being trapped with a caged lion. He made her nervous too.

  He stopped at the living room window, peering out from behind the long length of flowered drapery. He let the fabric drop into place. “What do you do for fun in the evenings when I’m not around? Please don’t tell me you work every night.”

  He wasn’t normally like this. If she hadn’t been so focused on sex she would have seen it before. She should definitely be worried. She still wasn’t sure that sex wasn’t the problem though, so she didn’t dare come right out and ask what was wrong. No matter what was the root cause of his restlessness, he was going to deny it existed.

  “What do you usually do?” she countered, unwilling to admit out loud that yes, she did work most of the time. She was a scholar. A scientist. As well as the upcoming conference, she had a new book she was contracted to write. Cooking was her only real hobby.

  “I don’t keep normal hours. When I’m free I go out in the evenings. To bars. Concerts. Sometimes the gym.” His eyes lit up. “Change into jeans and anything but high heels, Dr. Babe,” he said. “Preferably sneakers if you’ve got them. We’re going out.”

  Chapter Eight

  “I don’t know about this.”

  Irina stared at the climbing wall. It was a long way to the top. Colorful hand and footholds had been bolted from floor to ceiling, but anything that required signing a personal disclaimer couldn’t be safe.

  “Don’t worry so much. You’ll give yourself wrinkles.” Kale adjusted the harness fastened between her legs and around her hips to his satisfaction, then clipped it to the rope. “The rope is fastened to the floor. You can’t fall. And when you’re ready to start down, I’ll have control of the brake. We can go as slow as you like.” He brought his mouth close to her ear so that the warmth of his breath tickled her throat and ratcheted her pulse up a notch. “Do you like it slow?”

  Whatever was bothering him, here, in a public place, he was much more relaxed. More like himself—or who she’d thought him to be—and she couldn’t figure out why. It was driving her crazy.

  She concentrated on rubbing chalk on her hands. “You should pay attention and find out which I prefer.”

  He straightened. “Don’t kid yourself, Dr. Babe. I pay attention. But for now, it’s best if we keep the brakes on. You’ll just have to trust me on that.”

  He hadn’t cared about brakes Saturday night. He was a risk taker. He’d encouraged her to take a few too. She hadn’t been naked alone. Neither had she begged him for a commitment, or assumed it meant anything serious. She’d taken nothing for granted. So what would make him hold back?

  When, exactly, had things gone wrong?

  The sequence of events clicked into place, from their conversation in bed to his trip outdoors, where he’d made a call to report on the botnet. Her skin flushed hot, then slicked with ice. Her breath froze in her chest.

  “Oh my God. You told Ottawa that you slept with me, didn’t you? You…you…” She was too enraged to articulate. She gave him a shove. She might as well have pushed at the wall. Those gorgeous blue eyes expanded, but other than that, he didn’t budge.

  His
face, however, turned a dull red. So did the tips of his ears. “Penis?” he supplied, but he kept his voice low. “This might not be the best place to have this conversation.”

  Irina, normally the soul of discretion, was beyond caring. It was evening on a weeknight. The gym was mostly empty. Besides the attendant, who was sorting equipment and not paying them any attention, there were only two other people and they were both climbing. One was an obvious expert, moving horizontally along the wall just beneath the ceiling, well over their heads. The other was on the opposite side of the large room, inside a cave-like structure, climbing without a harness above a giant mattress. “Why not? Nobody’s listening.”

  “There are ears everywhere. Take it from me.”

  She’d known his job was to gather intelligence. It was her fault for thinking the intelligence gathering would stop at the bedroom door. She took a few deep, shaky breaths that didn’t help. “Get this harness off me. I want to go home. Now.”

  He caught her hands as she tugged at the straps, trying to loosen them. He bent his knees and brought his face close to hers, peering into her eyes. “Has it occurred to you that maybe I’ve been under considerable stress the past few days and need to work some of it off, and that my preferred method might be off-limits?”

  His voice curled around her. She bit the inside of her lip to keep it from trembling with rage. How dare he try to placate her by referring to Saturday night? How much stress did he think she’d been under?

  Her own words were icy. “Has it occurred to you that the details of your ‘preferred method’ include me, and will be going into a file where people check my security clearances?”

  He squeezed her fingers. “Nothing that happened between us is going into any file.”

  Despite her common sense telling her she was crazy for it, she wanted to believe him. “Then why would you say anything to Ottawa about it in the first place?”

  “It’s complicated.” He straightened, still holding her hands. “My communication with my team leader is based on honesty and complete disclosure. If what happened between you and I should ever take on relevance at some point down the road, and I hadn’t told him about it, then our working relationship would be damaged.”

  He’d put his career ahead of her privacy. Rather than wanting to kill him for it, which she did, she tried to see it from his point of view. After all, he owed her nothing. She’d simply assumed discretion was part of the deal. This was what she got for sleeping with a virtual stranger. The entire evening had been completely out of character for her. And yet it had been an amazing experience. Disappointment, unwanted, that a repeat was now off the agenda warred with her anger. What helped a little—a very little—was finding out he’d spent the past few days frustrated too.

  She jerked her hands out of his. If they went home now, the rest of the evening would be spent in awkward and uncomfortable silence—on her part at least. The coming days and nights didn’t bear thinking about.

  “Fine. Since I’m already harnessed, let’s get this over with.”

  It might not hurt for her to work off some stress too.

  * * *

  That hadn’t gone well at all.

  Despite the outer sweetness and timidity, and the sensuality she kept well under wraps, Dr. Babe had a temper. Determination to go with it too.

  Kale kept one eye on the belaying line, making sure she was safely anchored as she made slow but steady progress up the wall. How far she climbed would be directly proportional to her anger. His money was on her hitting the roof.

  He hadn’t expected her to figure out what he’d spoken to Dan about, which was dumb on his part. So far, she’d figured out everything. She was going to figure out about that camera too, and being under a direct order not to tell her about it wasn’t going to save him. He’d really screwed up and he didn’t know how to fix things with her. This was why he didn’t date women with brains. Trying to keep a step ahead of them was exhausting.

  One of her feet slipped off a rock, leaving her dangling in midair, legs flailing. She made the mistake of looking at the floor. Panic skittered across her face. “Bring me down!”

  No way. She could do this. She simply had to have more confidence in her abilities beyond those attached to her computer. He held the brake steady while he called out reassurance, then instructions. “I’ve got you. You aren’t going to fall. Grab onto the wall and take a few seconds to calm down and catch your breath. Move your left foot a little higher. That’s it. Keep your eyes on the wall, not the floor. Once you get your balance back, then you can decide if you want to come down or finish the climb. You don’t have much farther to go.” She was only a few yards from the top. He hated to see her lose her nerve now. “You can do this.”

  “My arms are tired.”

  “That’s good,” he encouraged her. “You’re supposed to be using your upper body the most. But if you’ve got a good foothold now, rest your weight on your legs and give your arms a break.”

  She wasn’t in any danger. This was an easy climb meant for beginners. It was how she felt, however, that really mattered to him. If she did decide to quit, he wouldn’t judge her. It hadn’t been her choice of entertainment to come here tonight. Next time he’d have to think of something she would enjoy.

  She clung to the wall, pulling herself together. “I’m going to finish,” she said, sounding as determined as if she’d decided to crest the summit of Kilimanjaro.

  Everything she did, she did with such serious focus it made him smile. He was never going to forget the lesson she’d given him in female anatomy. He’d never look at a clitoris the same way again either.

  She made it to the top. A short while later she was back on the mat beside him. He began unhooking her harness.

  “I did it,” she said.

  The glow of pure pleasure flushing her cheeks punched his brain because he’d seen that expression before, only under much different circumstances. She was so right. He should have kept his mouth shut about them sleeping together. If he had, he could take her in his arms right now and congratulate her the way he wanted. But if a video of that night in her living room should ever turn up, Dan needed to be prepared.

  She should be prepared too. There was a very good chance that if he told her about it, however, she’d be afraid, and he’d rather she remained angry. She was a scholar. A researcher. Designing weapons systems placement was nothing more than an intellectual pursuit and a paycheck to her. He doubted reality had ever factored into any of it before. Someone was phishing for information on her computers, and if they couldn’t get it one way from her, what would be the next method they tried?

  Best not to head down that road.

  Not yet.

  “You did indeed,” he congratulated her. He went to one knee to help her step out of the harness, sliding one hand over her hip, taking unfair advantage of an excuse to touch. He wasn’t going to get too many opportunities now that he’d been told to back off.

  She stiffened. She gripped his arm to keep from falling over as she lifted her foot. Her fingers tightened. “I’m still angry.”

  “I know.”

  He glanced into those sea-green eyes, almost at a level with his. Her pink lips were pressed tight. His heart clenched with regret. She was so freaking adorable. Sleeping in the room next to hers was all kinds of torture. One night hadn’t been nearly enough, and it bugged the hell out of him that she’d given him the This isn’t going anywhere so let’s just have fun speech. They’d had more than fun.

  He lengthened the straps on the harness so it would fit his bulkier frame. Once everything was secure and he’d fastened himself to the floor, he scouted out which route on the wall he’d take to the top, but he had a lot of other things on his mind too. Most had to do with Irina. He hadn’t yet figured out a way to convince her to hack into the RBN. That was going to be a lot more difficult than climbing a wall wearing safety gear.

  And a whole lot less fun than getting her naked.

&nbs
p; * * *

  Friday night, they arrived at the bowling alley fashionably late.

  Irina’d had difficulty deciding what to wear, obsessing over her appearance for a full forty-five minutes before Kale finally, in desperation, insisted she go casual. She’d settled on a pair of black yoga pants topped with a modest pink cotton T-shirt, and twisted her hair into a knot on top of her head that she secured with an elastic band. While personally he liked it loose best, the result was sloppily sexy, as if she’d just crawled out of bed. Girl problems were hot as hell. He loved them. Another ten minutes and they wouldn’t have been leaving the house. He’d have peeled her clothes off, tossed her on her back, and licked that luscious labia minora until she screamed out his name. Again and again.

  And he wouldn’t have cared what Dan might have to say about it either. Dan had obviously never suffered from a five-day erection.

  The sounds of balls clattering down the alleys and pins crashing greeted them as they walked through the doors. This was their first real public performance and tonight, he got to touch and tease as much as he liked—within reason of course. It was part of the game. He ran his hand over the small of her back. He’d been trying to figure out what she had on underneath those stretchy pants and that T-shirt since they’d left the house. The distinct lack of panty lines offered his imagination plenty of possibilities.

  She was killing him.

  She edged away from his hand, going Dr. Glasov on him. “My usual man candy for work functions tends to be more circumspect.”

  They wouldn’t be if they knew of her preference for thongs.

  The walls and ceiling were built to deaden sound. While there was little chance they’d be overheard past the racket from the balls and the pins, he really did dislike discussing anything about their working relationship in public. He made his living listening to other people talk and making observations. Their body language, too, was a factor that could give them away. And right now Irina’s said volumes. She was nervous, whether of him or the crowd he couldn’t be certain. Either way she needed to loosen up.