by Alison Kent
"Oh, sure." He shrugged, passed the abacus to Wickham when he held out his hand. "I guess I'll head to the media room, check out a DVD or something."
"Certainly. Whatever you wish," Wickham said, but his comment was made in the abstract, his attention on the abacus he held and the refusal of his fingers to work.
He tried to grip the lower deck; the abacus bobbled in his palm. His heart lurched. He worked to slide the precious gift into his lap, to use his arm to gather it in. Nothing. Nothing. His extremities refused the signal from his brain. He couldn't even find his voice to call for Dr. Jinks.
All Wickham could do was watch the abacus fall to the floor and shatter, jade beads rolling across the hardwood, rods jutting from the frame like so many useless fingers.
Eighteen
According to Christian, Hank's Saratoga home had been remodeled after the death of his wife, one long wing converted into a dormitory. Three good-sized bedrooms had been cut into six, giving his SG-5 operatives a place to come in from the cold or whatever.
Natasha felt as if she was in a bad spy movie. Or, she supposed, a good spy movie, since these men were apparently the ones wearing the white hats. Unlike her godfather, who was equally apparently black through and through.
Shivering, she stared down at her overnighter, which had appeared earlier when another of Christian's cohorts, Kelly John Beach, had driven up in the Ferrari. She could keep staring for the next twenty-four hours and nothing would change.
She hadn't packed anything warm enough to ward off the cold she was feeling.
A bone-deep cold. No, a soul-deep cold. A cold that no wool or thermal weave would stave off. She needed a hot shower, a hot bath, a hot tub in the middle of a jungle. . . .
Thailand. The operative Hank had rescued had to be Christian. She supposed it could be Eli McKenzie; he was one very scary-looking man. But instinctively she knew Hank had been telling her Christian's story.
A story she might never have learned if Susan hadn't blown his Peter Deacon cover. Christian sure hadn't offered up any of the details. Not that he'd been able to, seeing as he hadn't been Christian until a few hours ago.
What a big fat mess of secrets and lies. Natasha pulled the white chenille spread from the bed, wrapped it around her body, and crossed the short width of the room. Shoving the curtains aside, she leaned her forearms on the sill and stared out the chest-high window.
After a terribly overcast day, the night sky was clear, the moon bright, the view beyond nothing but silhouettes and shadows. The woods, the stables, the helicopter. All in shades of gray. Even the man pacing the perimeter of the house was a muscled bulk of black.
She wondered if Eli was still walking off his hangover, assuming that's what he'd been doing when he'd followed her earlier, though now he seemed to be doing a penance of sorts, his gait measured, his head hung low.
She couldn't suppress her curiosity, wondering if he'd suffered in Mexico what Christian had suffered in Thailand. And suddenly she had to know.
What was it these men did? What horrors had they suffered? What qualities had Hank Smithson discovered in them that made them who they were, made them live these deceptive lives?
But when she opened her door to go to Eli and ask, she saw light shining and shadows moving from underneath that of the room opposite. Christian's room. Christian's shadow. Eli could wait.
She knocked once, lightly, and had just stepped back to go on her way when she heard the doorknob turn.
"Hi," she said, catching Christian's frown immed-iately, as well as his concern.
"Are you cold?"
"Actually, I'm freezing." She tugged the cape of her bedspread tighter and laughed softly. "But I don't think it's about the temperature in here. The house seems quite comfortable. Pm pretty sure it's just me."
He hesitated a moment before opening the door wider. "Do you want to come in?"
"Yes, thanks. I'd like that." She made her way into the room and across to the window in time to see Eli walk by. She glanced back to Christian, who'd obviously been watching the other man, too. "Is he going to be okay?"
Christian leaned his backside against the doorjamb, arms crossed over his chest, and studied her. "Hard to say. He's strong. He's got it together. He should be."
That rationale would have worked if Eli had been suffering anything logical. These men and this place? She knew that wasn't the case at all. "How long did it take you?"
"To do what?" Christian asked blithely.
Hmm. So it was like that, she thought, pressing straightforwardly on. "To get over Thailand?"
He stared at her for several long moments, the slow blink of his eyes his only response. And then he shifted his weight from one hip to the other, and lifted a questioning brow. "Who said I'm over Thailand?"
Okay. Well. That hadn't been what she'd expected. Now she wasn't quite sure what to say. "I'm sorry. I have to keep reminding myself that you're not who I've been thinking you were all this time."
"You're right. I'm not," he said with more bitterness than she'd ever heard in his voice as he pushed away from the door and returned to the small desk in the corner where a laptop screen glowed.
She wondered what it was he hated. The fact that she knew a part of his past? Or didn't know enough and was asking questions he didn't want to answer? "So, tell me who you are. Introduce me to Christian Bane."
He shook his head, punched a combination of keys to shut down the computer. "I don't think so."
"Why not?" she asked, brows lifted. "It only seems fair when you think about it."
He glanced up as the screen blinked off, his face going from light to dark just like that. "Think about what?"
"That you know everything about me, and I know nothing about you." Nothing beyond how he made her feel in bed, the ways he took her body apart. Nothing more than how much her stomach ached with the despair of his deception.
Nothing that wasn't about the attraction between them that even now buzzed overhead in the room.
"I needed to know you for this job." He stored the laptop in its case, then moved to the closet and unzipped the garment bag hanging on the door. "You need to keep thinking of me as Peter Deacon for that very same reason. It will make things a lot easier on both of us if you remember that."
"Right. I'll just act like everything's normal, like this whole day never happened." She followed Eli as he crossed her line of vision, wondering if walking for hours on end would give her the peace to move on after her "assignment." "Nothing matters but the job. Nothing but bringing down big bad Wickham Bow."
She supposed she should think about packing up her room there at her godfather's estate, about getting her resume together, figuring out how to move on with her life. Then again, thinking about anything beyond getting through tomorrow hurt her head.
Her heart was thankfully numb. It would take seeing Wick again, confronting him, before the reality of his treachery hit.
She reached up to rub the bands of tension binding her temples, wishing away the hollow sensation that had returned to suck her down. She was so far out of it she barely registered Christian moving to her side.
He didn't touch her. He leaned an elbow on the wall beside the window, massaged his neck, and stared out, yet his closeness still gave her comfort.
"I've known your godfather barely a week, and the mission's portfolio is nothing but facts. As tough as it is for you, and trust me, I know that it is, I could really use any help you can give me."
She shrugged. She was as clueless as he was. And she'd known Wick for more than half of her life. "I don't know what to tell you. I don't know what to think. What it appears he's guilty of here is so unlike him . . . I don't know. I just don't know."
"Has anything happened recently? A change in his routine? More demands than usual from the university? I know they've made special arrangements to broadcast his lectures, but is he under other pressures? Conferences he's scheduled to attend? A paper he has to presen
t?"
She shook her head. Just stood there and shook her head. None of Christian's questions brought anything to mind. Wick's schedule had been business as usual for weeks now, months even. "The only thing going on with him lately is that he's pushing himself too hard. He's not taking proper care of himself and he doesn't like that I nag."
"Men facing their own mortality have been known to lose judgment and perspective."
"Which would make sense if we were talking about anyone else." She shook her head slowly. "I can't see Wick going this far off the deep end. Not after the stand he's always taken on morality."
Christian stiffened. "Taking a stand doesn't mean shit when a man's out of his mind, Natasha. Morality doesn't put food in his stomach. Principles and ethics don't put salve on open wounds."
He paused; she heard him swallow before he cleared his throat and went on. "Don't think you know what does or doesn't make sense."
Interesting. "Is that what happened in Thailand?"
"Which part of it?"
"Any of it?"
"Try all of it." He propped an elbow on the windowsill, leaned his forehead into his hand and scrubbed his palm back and forth over his head as if rubbing away the torture of his thoughts.
When he spoke again, his voice echoed with a tangible anguish. "This is why you're better off thinking of me as Peter Deacon for the rest of our time together. Christian Bane isn't worth getting to know."
More and more interesting. Even as Peter Deacon, Christian had never struck her as the type to think so little of himself, to feel sorry for himself. She nodded toward the window. "What about Eli McKenzie?"
"What about him?"
"Does he possess any redeeming qualities?" She turned so that she faced Christian fully. "Or have you cornered the market on losing them all after living through hell?"
He shook his head, smirked more than smiled, and snorted.
Now she was getting somewhere. "What about Hank? Seeing his driver blown apart and living all this time with a piece of shrapnel grinding his hip into sawdust doesn't sound like a walk in the park."
Still he said nothing.
"I'm not trying to diminish your suffering. But you had your life ripped apart seven years ago. I'm not even up to seven hours here." She struggled to breathe, feeling as if she would never be able to fill her lungs. Feeling as if she had to strike out or explode from the anger building inside.
"I haven't been physically tortured or starved, no. But I'm standing here afraid if I unwrap this bedspread that I'll tumble to the floor in a pile of bones. So don't tell me what does or doesn't make sense."
His silence was a beat too long.
She turned to go but didn't make it very far. Christian put a foot down on the trailing end of her bedspread, ordering her, "Don't go."
She continued toward the door, the bedspread sliding from her shoulders until she felt completely exposed standing there in the khakis and sweater she'd been wearing all day. A ridiculous sensation since she was covered from head to toe, but she still felt as if Christian had stripped her bare.
"Please stay," he said, and she stopped.
One hand on the doorknob, she stopped and stared down at her pale fingers curled around the brushed brass ball. All she had to do was twist it to the right, pull the door inward a foot, and walk straight out of the room. A simple motion. That was all that stood between escape and letting him see the true extent of her vulnerability.
"I'm an ass, Natasha. I'm sorry. Now come here and warm up, or you'll never get to sleep."
In the end, she stayed because of the cold. She wanted to go, to spend the night alone, to use the silent time to dig for the inner strength the next few days would demand of her. But she was so cold. Cold to the bone. Cold to the very deepest parts of her heart.
Christian offered her use of the bed's sheet and blanket, insisting he'd be fine in his T-shirt and sweats. She chose instead to sleep on top of the covers, under which he finally slid. She was dressed, too, and had the nubby warmth of the chenille to cocoon herself in.
All she needed from Christian was the heat of his body as it warmed first his blankets then hers. That was all she needed.
She needed nothing more.
She woke in the middle of the night curled into a fetal position, having dreamed that she was hiding beneath the terrace tables from Wick.
He had wanted her to entertain his guests, to stand on the table's surface beneath the wide patio umbrella and tap-dance in her white patent leather shoes. She hadn't wanted to dance, hadn't wanted to be found.
Hadn't wanted to hear him making illicit deals behind her back with men she couldn't see while she played the part of entertainer.
And so she'd curled up tighter, tucked her hands between her thighs, her chin to her chest, and drifted between her dream world and the alien one into which she had briefly opened her eyes.
When she woke a second time, her dream was less specific, more ethereal, and she still didn't feel rested at all. Every bone in her body ached. Stress gripped her tendons and muscles so tightly she felt like a rubber band waiting to snap. She needed to ease the tension, needed to fall into an exhaustive sleep, knew the quickest way to both.
Still muzzy, she released the button on her waistband, lowered her zipper, slipped a hand into her panties and pressed a finger to one side of her clit. She shuddered, shivered, her eyes rolling back at the impact of the stimulation, her questing finger slipping deeper between her legs.
And then she remembered where she was.
How boneheaded could she possibly be, masturbate-ing in her sleep while sharing his bed? She pulled her hand from her pants, reminding herself that this was her body reacting to the fantasy of her dreams. She settled back down to sleep, reaching and searching for . . . what she couldn't recall.
But the longer she lay there unmoving, the itchier she got. Awareness of the man sleeping at her side, his breathing deep and even, sparked like lightning over her skin, raising the hair at her nape along with her temperature. She rocked her lower body slightly, her breathing quickened, her sex grew heavy with need.
She had to get out of here now. Too much of her bedspread, however, lay caught beneath the weight of Christian's bulk. She left the covering, slowly swung her legs over the side of the bed, and sat up.
Christian reached out and snagged her wrist before she moved any further. "Stay."
She shook her head, certain he'd been sleeping, that it was her wrangling with the bedspread that had woken him up and not. . . "I have to go."
"Stay, Natasha." He eased up on his hold but he didn't release her. "I'd feel better having you here."
The comment put her on the defensive. She wasn't even sure why. "Afraid I'm going to bolt?"
"No. Afraid you won't get back to sleep if you go." He tugged lightly. "I know I won't."
"Why's that?" she asked, not quite ready to give in.
"Worrying about you," he said without hesitation.
See? Why was she expecting the worst from him when he'd never been anything but considerate? Well, except for the fact that everything between them had been based on lies. "I'm not sure I'll be able to get back to sleep. And I don't want to keep you awake."
This time he tugged a bit harder, his hold more insistent. "Stay. Please."
Once again, the magic word. Denying him anything didn't seem to be in the cards. Funny enough, however, giving in didn't seem like a capitulation at all. It simply seemed like the thing to do. Slowly, she lowered herself back down to lay on her side.
Christian wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her and her bedspread close. "Much better."
God, but he made her feel so good. Protected and comfortable. Hopeful. Warm. "I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I can't remember ever sleeping with a man before."
"You've slept with me twice now."
She snuggled deeper into the spoon of his body. "Yes, but we did more than sleep both times."
"You haven't been in
a relationship where you just slept with your partner?"
It did seem strange when she thought about it that way. "I've never lived with anyone, no. So, nights spent together always meant. . ."
"Sex," he finished for her when she suddenly grew too uncomfortable to go on.
She didn't want to talk about sex with other men, didn't even want to think about it, being with Christian here and now. They weren't committed. They had no understanding, no arrangement. Nothing about their intimacy meant anything— yet it meant everything.
It meant more than she'd let herself realize until now, because accepting that truth brought home the awareness that she was involved with another unsuitable man—and growing comfortably used to having him near.
"It's nice, you know. Being with you like this. Not to say sex hasn't crossed my mind," she admitted with a bit of self-deprecation and a chuckle.
Christian tightened his hold around her middle. "Believe me. You're not the only one with the dirty mind."
She laughed again, enjoying that they could talk easily and feel no pressure to act on their shared desires. "My girlfriends give me a hard time about having a man's sex drive. Too much testosterone, I guess."
"Hmm. I was beginning to wonder about that mustache of yours."
She bit back a chuckle and jabbed her elbow in reverse, catching it in her bedspread and his blanket and sheet. "That was not funny."
"Hmm. I thought I heard you laughing," he said sleepily.
She should let him go back to sleep. Keeping him awake had not been her intent when she'd decided to stay. Yet while slumber seemed so elusive when he was here in her grasp, the anger and hurt were easier to bear.
She sighed. "That's because laughing isn't as painful as crying."
For several long minutes he remained silent, his hand slowly stroking over her hipbone and thigh. She waited patiently, loving the calming sensation of his touch, the soothing, repetitive motion that quickly lulled her like her own thoughts had failed to do.
Yet when his hand stopped moving, she inexplicably found herself holding her breath for the revelation to come. She wasn't disappointed.
