by Rebecca York
With a little sob, she pressed her face against his neck. “Then why must you go away tonight?”
“Simply being here puts you in danger. Staying puts you in more.”
“I’m willing to take that risk.”
His hand found her chin, tipped her face up so that his intense blue gaze could meet her dark one.
“Julie, I can’t ask that of you.”
“It’s my decision.”
Tenderness, passion, and admiration welled inside him, but still he held a part of himself in check. Gazing down at her, he reached up to stroke back a strand of the thick dark hair that he loved to touch. “Lyubovochka, there’s another risk to you. I didn’t expect that we...I mean I’m not prepared to...”
The hesitantly spoken words, coupled with the desire he was so obviously struggling to rein in, told her more about the depth of his feelings. A man with only superficial interest in a woman would simply take his pleasure with her and damn the consequences.
This time it was she who gently covered his mouth with her fingertips. “You’re worried about pregnancy?”
He nodded. Under the circumstances leaving her with a child would be unthinkable.
“I’m protected against that.”
Still he held back, searching her face. Sadness was mixed with the passion smoldering in his eyes. “You know that I will have to leave before morning.” As he spoke, he couldn’t prevent his lips from caressing the fingers that still rested against his mouth.
“Alyoshenka, let’s not talk of that again.”
He looked down at her in wonder. She had uttered a very personal sort of endearment, embroidered on the name Aleksei in the Russian fashion. It had been a long time since anyone had spoken to him that intimately. “You think about me that way?”
“Only in the middle of the night when I can’t sleep from wanting you.”
She didn’t know if a curse or a benediction came from his lips this time, but it didn’t matter. The important thing was that he had folded her into his arms once more.
“Come into the bedroom,” she whispered.
She turned, and he followed her back down the hall, his hand possessive now on the curve of her hip. At the entrance to the room, he paused, holding her gently against himself as he looked around. His lips feathered the side of her neck, his hands combed through her hair as he took in the room, glad that her packing had disturbed only one small corner. There was so much of her here, and he wanted to know her through that as well as the pleasure of knowing her body. The lamps on the tables beside the double bed were unlit, but soft light streamed into the room through the open bathroom door.
The woven rug was South American, the wall decorations prints of some of the most romantic landscapes from the Prado. But inevitably, his eyes were drawn to the carved mahogany bed with its lacy coverlet.
The whisper kisses of his lips on her neck as he stood behind her and the gentle tug of his fingers in her hair were arousing powerful feelings. Julie took a step toward the bed, and his hands came around her shoulders in gentle restraint to pull her back against him.
“I’ve longed to hold you like this,” he confessed, his strong fingers making a contrast against her white robe as they traced down the wide strip of lace that adorned the front.
Julie held her breath, watching as his hands cupped her breasts and weighed their fullness before beginning to stroke them in a way that was all the more erotic for the silky fabric that separated his skin from hers. Through the almost translucent material her nipples budded, and waves of pleasure shot through her body.
He felt her strain against his hands, needing to increase the contact. The response was so elemental that it threatened to break through his tightly held control.
“You’re like a drug that’s seeped into my soul.” He could no longer fight the addiction.
“And what of mine?” she questioned, her voice deep and throaty.
“Dushenka!” The soft Russian endearment was a word that meant soul, and never had it had more meaning to him.
His hands were at the buttons of her robe then, releasing them quickly so that he could slide the slippery fabric off her shoulders. When his hands found her unencumbered breasts again and his thumbs stroked across the hardened nipples, she gasped. Suddenly her body was on fire, every nerve ending alive and sending urgent messages to her brain. Though she was standing with her back to him, she wanted and needed to touch him too. The strength of the need surprised her. The realization suddenly hit her that always before in a man’s arms she had held something of herself back. Now she felt compelled to give and take everything she could.
Slipping her hands from the sleeves of the robe, she reached up and behind her, her fingers touching the thick silk of his hair. The robe would surely have slid to the floor except that there was not a millimeter of space between their tightly pressed bodies. She felt his lips on her cheek, and her head strained sideways against his shoulder. She ached to feel the pressure of his mouth on hers.
“Is this some sort of Russian torture?” The words slipped from her mouth before she knew she’d said them.
His laugh was husky and not altogether steady against her ear. “No, an American plot for bringing the Kremlin to its knees.”
As he spoke he turned her in his arms. For a moment they smiled into each other’s eyes. Then, as the silky robe slipped slowly down her hips, his blue gaze darkened.
The passion she saw there fueled her own. Her fingers slid under the waist of his running jacket and upward across the bare expanse of his back, feeling with pleasure the taut skin and hard muscles.
“Such clever hands,” Aleksei murmured.
The words made her bold. One palm moved to the front of his body and journeyed slowly across his chest to stroke his flat nipples and wring an exclamation of pleasure from his lips. When she touched the line of a scar that descended downward from his breastbone, she felt him suck in his breath.
“Did I hurt you?”
“No, that was from long ago.” He turned his face to nibble at the lobe of her ear. The endearments he whispered were half in Russian, half in English. The words and the emotion in his voice sent another wave of longing through her.
The hand on his chest turned to grasp the neckline of his jacket from the inside. The other found the zipper closing and pulled it down. Pushing aside the knit material, she pressed her breasts against his naked chest. This time his gasp of delight mingled with her own.
It was several moments before he released her to shrug out of the jacket.
Even covered by his usually conservative clothing, the lean but muscular lines of his body had been impressive. Now she had a better idea of how magnificent he really was. The long scar only added to the fascination of his masculinity.
“You’re beautiful,” she sighed, her hands settling at his waist.
“Not compared to you.” His fingers traced over her shoulders, down the line of her spine, and slowly up again. Then quickly he lifted her in his arms and carried her to the bed, where he laid her gently down. In a moment he had shed the rest of his clothing and joined her.
The pleasure of his body covering hers was almost unbearable. She had dreamed of this. But reality was far more potent than the fantasy.
“Alyoshenka,” she crooned, glorying in the intimacy of the name. At least now, for this moment, he belonged to her. No one could ever take that away.
Could a man live a lifetime in one night, he wondered, not realizing that he had spoken the thought aloud in Russian.
“I can, with you,” she promised in the same language, her lips close against his ear.
“Julie. Oh, God, Julie.” The freedom to touch and caress her as he had longed to was almost overwhelming.
“Oh, yes, please, now,” she begged. Her hands on his body were urgent, imploring.
He braced himself on his arms above her. Never had pleasing a woman been more central to his own satisfaction. “No, dushenka. Not yet.” Slowly he bent to kiss
her face, her shoulders, her breasts. “So soft, like velvet. So wonderful to touch,” he murmured, shifting so that he could stroke up the inside curve of her thigh to the warm, moist center of her femininity. His smoldering gaze followed the progress of his hand.
She trembled beneath him, pressing her face against his chest. She was overwhelmed by the sensations he was creating. But he would not be hurried. Not until the skillful coaxing of his hands and mouth had lifted her up on wave after wave of pleasure did he enter her.
The heat and hardness of him stunned her. Then her need for fulfillment became the only truth in the universe. She was helpless to do anything but move with him, cling to him, call his name. Up and up he carried her as though she were caught in the spiral of a tornado. And then suddenly she was there in a tight, blinding whirlwind of sensation that brought her to the edge of frenzy before she surrendered to the rapture of it.
He waited, poised on the brink, feeling her deep contractions of pleasure around him. Her ecstasy shattered the last barrier. And in the glory of his own fulfillment, he felt his soul fuse with hers.
For a long moment neither one of them moved. When Aleksei finally rolled to his side, he brought her with him, cradling her body tightly against his.
She felt his lips move lovingly against her cheek, her hair.
“Was that as good for you as it was for me?” she asked hesitantly.
He laughed softly. “I thought you could tell, but in America is that what the women ask?”
She angled back slightly so that her solemn gaze could meet his. “Alyoshenka, until a few moments ago I didn’t know it was possible for a woman to feel anything that intense.”
He stared back at her in surprise. “Truly?”
“Yes, truly.” The thought that she would never see him again after tonight almost tore her heart in two.
He saw the pain flicker in the depth of her brown eyes. “Don’t think about tomorrow. Just give me tonight.” What they had found together was so incredible. But their hours together were so few.
She pressed her face against his chest again and clenched her eyes shut. She’d had years of experience masking her emotions. Surely until dawn she could hold her despair at bay.
His hand stroked across her shoulders, the gesture comforting and sensual all at once. “When I couldn’t sleep, I’d lie awake at night thinking of questions I wanted to ask you.”
“Like what?”
He hesitated for a moment. “The most intimate kind of questions. Like how you sleep—on your back or curled up on your side? What are your fantasies? When do you prefer making love—in the morning or the evening?”
She couldn’t help smiling. “Were they really in that order?”
“No.”
“Well, the first one is easy, I sleep curled on my side.” As she spoke, her hand burrowed into the thick hair of his chest. She couldn’t deny the need to keep touching him.
“And the rest?” His fingers stroked the indentation at her waist.
She felt her cheeks redden slightly. Even when she’d been so afraid of him, he’d still haunted her dreams like an incubus offering her heaven and hell if only she would surrender. Now she tried to make her voice light. “I think you know what my fantasies have been lately.”
“Tell me.”
“A dark, dangerous Russian, with arms like bands of steel and lips that take my sanity away.”
“Such power this man has,” he murmured, his mouth teasing hers as he spoke. “But your Russian is captive as well as captor.”
The kiss lengthened, and she felt her arousal, so recently satisfied, beginning to build again. But he seemed to relish the slow sensuality of the tempo. “And when do you prefer to make love?” he prompted.
“Ask me in the morning.”
“Early in the morning.”
They were skirting close to dangerous ground again.
“I’ve wanted to tell you, I love the way my name sounds when you say it,” she said quickly.
“It’s not quite right, is it? That’s because we don’t have the J sound in Russian.”
“You make it seem beautiful and exotic.”
“The way you are to me, beautiful and exotic.” His warm gaze caressed her face.
She lifted his free hand and kissed the fingertips. “Do I get three questions too?” she asked. If only they were three wishes.
“Of the same type, yes.”
“Can I be a bit more serious?”
He nodded cautiously.
“Are you happy with your life?”
His grip tightened on her shoulder. “Not happy, but there are certain satisfactions.”
The regret in his voice made her chest tighten. She wanted to ask what it would take to make him happy, but that was beyond the boundaries of this bedroom. “What do you do for fun?” she asked instead.
“When I’m at home, I like to take long walks in the woods.”
“That sounds very solitary.”
“Oh, no. In my country, we do that with friends or as a family.”
“I’d like to know about your family.”
A shadow crossed his face. “I have no one left.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“It’s better that way.” His finger stroked the side of her face. “You’ve had more than your three questions. It’s my turn again. Tell me something about your childhood.”
She searched her mind and brought back a warm Christmas memory of the first time her mother had let her cut out the sugar cookies. The episode sparked a story from Aleksei about a pair of cross-country skis Grandfather Frost, the Russian version of Santa Claus—who came on New Year’s Eve—had brought him.
Each had access to dossiers on the other filled with the cold facts. But only now were they learning the truth about one another. Eagerly they exchanged recollections of treasured moments and insights into two childhoods that were worlds apart.
As they talked, they continued to stroke and touch each other’s bodies, the caresses becoming more intimate as the hours of night flew toward dawn. Though each was fully aware of the other’s arousal, both were reluctant to bring it to its logical conclusion because it must be for the last time.
Finally, there was no option except to grasp the short moments of joy they had left.
Julie felt tension coil inside her until she found herself moving against Aleksei with a frantic urgency—an urgency that could be assuaged in only one way. It was the same for him. A few hours ago they had found the heights of ecstasy together. Now the joining took them even higher. As the first streaks of dawn stole through the window, Julie cried out, overwhelmed by a fulfillment that was all the more intense because it was tinged with anguish.
Chapter Twelve
Slava Bogolubov had also spent a sleepless night. But the reasons were quite different, though no less pleasurable. He’d finally gotten the proof he needed to put the Raven in a steel cage, and he’d spent the small hours of the morning documenting his facts.
Leaning back and lighting a thick Havana cigar, he allowed himself to savor his victory. It was all the more sweet because—though he would never admit it publicly—the Raven was a worthy opponent. The man was crafty, with an uncanny ability to sniff out traps—like the dead drop at the Prado. But he had finally made a fatal mistake by tampering with the infrared seal on that diplomatic pouch. The lab in Moscow had pinpointed the hour when the seal was broken. The only suspect staffer who was still in the building was the Raven.
Reaching for the phone, the general dialed Yuri Hramov’s hotel. “I have the authorization I need. The Raven’s identify has been confirmed. Go pick him up.”
Hramov’s steely eyes lit. Getting even with a bigwig who had thwarted him in the past was always gratifying. Shifting the phone to his shoulder, he opened the bedside table and took out a set of brass knuckles. “You don’t mind if I settle a few scores of my own before I bring him in?”
Hramov was a barely controlled savage, the general thought. While savag
es had their uses, they weren’t known for thinking through the consequences of their actions. “You’re underestimating the man,” he snapped. “He’s hidden his identity for this long because he’s a crafty son of a bitch. Be very careful or he’s going to slip through your fingers.”
The henchman patted the automatic pistol in his shoulder holster. “I never knew a man who could run very far with a shattered ankle.”
“I want the bastard alive and wishing you’d sent him to hell. He’s going to give me some answers if it’s the last thing he does,” Bogolubov shot back, already anticipating the interrogation to come.
“Understood, Comrade General.”
* * *
ALEKSEI DRESSED quickly. He had already stayed here with Julie dangerously long, yet there was still some unfinished business between the two of them.
Turning back from the doorway, he caressed her with his gaze. Though her body was covered by a sheet, he knew its contours intimately now. The pleasure of holding her in his arms would have to warm him for many a long night. But at this moment the pain in her eyes made his breath catch in his chest. “Do you remember that I came to leave you something?” he asked softly.
She nodded, not trusting herself to speak, because she knew she would ask him to stay.
“I’ll get it from my knapsack.”
She was propped up against the pillows when he returned from the living room with a small tissue-wrapped package. Sitting down on the side of the bed, he placed it gently in her hands. With shaking fingers she unwrapped the paper. Nestled inside was one of the exquisite Russian wolfhound figurines they’d seen the day they’d met for lunch.
“Oh. It’s beautiful.”
“I bought them both and kept the other one.”
She clutched his hand, knowing that in a few moments he’d walk out of her life forever. “I don’t have anything for you.”
