by Rosette Lex
He turned around and pulled the door open, his chest heaving and his eyes blazing. His emotions led the way, and she pulled back, eyes wide, mistaking his rage at Bogdanovic for rage at her.
He pulled himself up short, instincts demanding that he be gentle with her even if she was playing him like a damned violin. Deep breaths. “Bogdanovic left a bomb in your penthouse.”
She blinked in confusion, as if she couldn’t believe he still wasn’t convinced. “I don’t live in the--”
“Shut up,” he snapped, and she flinched as if he had raised his hand to her.
She stared at him, her shirt on but her chest heaving and a light mist of sweat on her skin. Her eyes were still dilated with desire, and her lipstick was smeared from his kisses. “I don’t understand.”
He walked over to her, and she backed up against the wall, staring wide-eyed up at him, while he leaned over and planted a hand against the wall above each of her shoulders.
He stared down at her, eyes cold, scowling, while behind it all he was in pain top to bottom. His team was in danger because of his woman. Except she wasn’t his woman, she was Bogdanovic's woman. And Bogdanovic had blown up his men while she had been distracting him.
He spoke in a low, cold tone, while inside he seethed...mostly at himself. How had he allowed this to happen? But he took all the power of his emotions and focused them in the intensity behind his words, which were slow and measured.
“I need to know everything that you know about Alexei Bogdanovic right now. Because two of my men are now dead because of him, another is hanging on by his fingernails, and all of us, including the two of us, are on lock-down until this situation is under control.”
She swallowed. “I won’t be much help.”
He smiled without letting it reach his eyes, while inside his anger only intensified because God, why did it have to be her that he had to intimidate the truth out of?
“Well, you had better be some help, because otherwise, we are very likely to be here for a while.”
Her jaw dropped, and tears glimmered in her eyes. “I wish I could help you. But they didn’t let me know very much when I substituted for Marina. That’s probably why they substituted me. I wouldn’t hold out on you and put people at risk. Bogdanovic’s a scumbag!”
His humorless smile tightened, and he lowered his head, glancing away from her and then back. Then he let her go, removing his hands from the wall and turning to stalk stiff-backed into the living room. He sat down on the couch, that same insolent pose he had met her in, but this time from sheer exasperated anger. “Then tell me what you know.”
“I...he….” She smoothed a hand back over her braid, “He only showed up at the party for a few minutes, at least that I could see. He looked around for a while, and then met a guy in a suit and went upstairs with him. It was another area like the dance rooms, with its own guards. Two of them.” She came over timidly and sat on the far end of the couch, knees pointed toward him, her eyes liquid with worry. He could smell the faint sharp scent of her arousal from the couch, from their...interlude. I shouldn’t have done that. I should never have let her in like that.
“...wait.” She was still maintaining her story, but the details were at least interesting. “The man in the suit. Could you describe him?”
“Yeah, I think so, he kept coming around to the coke table so I got a pretty good look at him.” She blinked and stared off into space a moment.
“Six feet maybe, either Hispanic or Puerto Rican. He had short dreadlocks but he wasn’t black, and his eyes were a really light brown.” She paused. “Are you all right?”
“Say that again. Short dreadlocks, Hispanic, light brown eyes. Did he have facial hair?”
“He had a pointy goatee.”
Oh God. No, it can’t be. There’s no god-damned way.
She was describing Ramirez. He was their tech guy, currently in the hospital with a bullet in him. The fact that he had been shot didn’t make her story a lie; sadly, the Serbs were just as likely to gun down a turncoat who had helped them as an enemy standing against them.
The less of their “friends” survived, the fewer people there were around to turn state’s evidence. But he just couldn’t believe it. How could Ramirez have turned on them? What had they paid him or held over his head? How could this possibly be true?
“Alan, you’re shaking.” She moved closer, and he held up a hand.
“Don’t touch me.” At her pained look, he just shook his head and stood up, pacing the room, head down. “You’re absolutely certain that that’s the man you saw.”
“Yes. I….”
He pulled out his smart phone and brought up a photograph. “This man. This man in particular.”
“Yes.” She pressed her lips together, and then nodded. “That’s definitely him. He just dressed up for the party.”
“Dear God.” He started laughing, a dry hitching of his shoulders that he couldn’t control. The Serbs had an inside man. HAVE an inside man, and I can’t reach anyone to tell them!
4: Lockdown
Emily wanted to cry. Alan kept running hot and cold in ways she couldn't keep up with emotionally. All she knew was that something terrible had happened, that she was stuck here until it blew over, and that her beautiful, amazing, stubborn captor still wouldn't believe she wasn't lying no matter what she did.
And yet he'd done it again. He had taken her in his arms and kissed her, and caressed her body, and paid the kind of attention to her breasts that she absolutely loved.
He had left her sweating and trembling, aching to feel him thrust into her, bare inches from doing just that. And then not ten minutes later, the news he had gone into the other room to receive had sent him back shaking and telling her not to touch him.
Which is it? She wanted to scream. Did he want her in his bed or did he want her in prison? He may not even have meant to be a giant tease. But she was ready to lose her mind.
She sat on the couch with him, the couch they had kissed and sweated and stripped each other on, and nibbled a turkey sandwich she couldn't taste.
He was lost in thought, eyes dark and heavy lidded as he brooded. She stared at him over her sandwich, wanting to take him in her arms and comfort him. But he still thought she was Bogdanovic's girlfriend. His enemy.
He kept looking at her, doing what he thought was sneaking peeks. But every time he did, she felt it down to her bones. She remembered those wonderful minutes in his arms, when she had almost imagined she could feel his lust and pleasure layered in with her own.
She had never felt a sense of communion like that during sex, never in her life. It had made that awful interruption all the more painful. And now, she still felt that same strange sensitivity. As if she were a radio that had become somehow tuned to his frequency.
That's impossible. But she couldn't explain the feeling any other way.
“You should really try eating more,” he said softly. “I know you’re hungry.” Those silver eyes didn’t blink enough, but they had gone gentle again. How cold they could become...and how soothingly soft.
But she wondered how many women he had turned that gentle look on. Probably very many, from the looks of him. How could he not have a little black book as thick as his finger hidden somewhere on his person?
Or the smart phone equivalent. The way he had touched her...it was like he just knew, somehow, exactly what to do to drive her crazy with desire. How many women did you have to practice on before you got that good? He’s the male equivalent of the town bicycle, but hotter. The town motorcycle?
She took another bite of her sandwich, chewed and swallowed. It wasn’t bad. The bread was a good San Francisco sourdough, and the tomato was heirloom. He had good taste. She licked her lips. “
It’s not your cooking. It’s...all of this.” She looked down.
“I know you don’t believe me, but I wish you would just...pretend to believe me a little while, maybe, so I don’t feel like a crazy person? Because right now it’s
like my entire world just went completely nuts. The only time it doesn’t feel nuts is when I’m with you and we’re just talking or...other things…” she blushed and lowered her eyelashes, and heard him draw a low, shuddering breath.
“Instead of this thing where you still think I’m Bogdanovic’s woman and I’m holding out on you or something.”
“I would know if you were holding out on me,” he said with strange confidence, and a certain resignation. “No, I’m more thinking along the lines that either you’re being forced not to talk, or Bogdanovic has done something to you.”
“Like what, brainwashed me?”
“Or traumatized you into forgetting your time with him.” He stared at her steadily...and sadly.
She went cold. Because...no, no, of course not. I’m Emily. I’m Marina’s neighbor. I’m not Marina with some kind of screwed up delusion.
But the whole possibility sent a wave of terror through her, and she shivered and hugged herself. What would it be like to discover that her life actually was a lie? It felt no crazier than any of the rest of this.
He got that strange, pained look in his eyes again, and reached out, touching her shoulder very gently. His hand could have engulfed the whole thing, but instead he brushed his fingertips over her skin lightly, an almost tender gesture.
“How about we not think about that for a moment? Tell me about yourself, Emily.”
She drew a deep breath, gaining a thread of strength from his soft touch.
“My name’s Emily Grey. I met Marina in some exotic dance classes we were both taking, and she drove me home. We talked a lot. I thought we were friends. Guess I should have known better. This is LA, after all.”
She took another bite and looked out the window at the anonymous building across from them.
“I was a UCLA graduate on scholarship. My family’s from San Francisco. They didn’t make much; Mom was sick and Dad was a garbage collector. I was the first one in my family to graduate from college. Of course now I’m doing the grad student thing without enough scholarship money and a couple of side jobs, so, it’s slow going.”
He had taken a few surprisingly dainty bites of his sandwich while she talked, and licked his lips. “What is your area of study?”
“Cultural anthropology. I’m planning to do my thesis on Internet subcultures.” If I ever get out of this. She distracted herself from that thought with another bite of her sandwich.
He rubbed his chin. “That’s quite interesting. Not what I expected. By the way…” he set his sandwich back on its plate and dabbed at his lips with his napkin before smirking just slightly.
“What were you doing in an exotic dance class? Not that I’m casting judgment on what I so enjoyed watching.”
She felt her cheeks heat up again, but this time she smiled.
“Um, I took them because I wanted to get over some of my shyness. With men, I mean. I’ve...dated...some, but I never quite know what to do with myself around guys, and it seems like the ones who might be interested get the idea that I don’t like them.”
“Ah, yes, that’s true. If you can’t make eye contact we tend to think you’re uncomfortable around us personally, instead of uncomfortable in making eye contact.” He smiled faintly.
“It’s a daring move to go from that to cage dancing, however.”
“Well, I mean...people go their whole lives without doing anything really interesting. I figured it would make for some good stories. And it’s not the kind of thing most people would expect from an anthropology geek.”
He smiled, relaxing slightly. “I suppose not.” Then he tapped his lip with a finger. “Think that they should have left out the platforms in that outfit of yours, though.”
“Oh God, I hated those shoes so much. They’re hell on your back and legs, and unless you’re really strong and have a lot of practice, dancing in them just doesn’t happen. I can even do stilettos. But those damn platforms...no.” Her brow knit.
“We were all wearing them. He had the servers in them too, and Marina was always wearing the damn things. In fact, she could dance in them a lot better than me. She actually collected them.”
“That’s an interesting bit of information,” he mused, looking to make a mental note. “Apparently he has a fetish she is satisfying. Did she buy a lot of them in a given month?”
“The trash was always full of shoe-box tissue and right-sized boxes from different mail order places, so...probably?”
“I see.” He took a larger bite of his sandwich, seeming to mull this information as he munched.
“I don’t much like platforms myself. They make women look like they are being punished for something.”
She smiled a little in spite of herself. “Well, that guy was really messed up about women anyway. I guess a lot of these gangster types are. A friend did a study of them in Chicago, and basically guys like that don’t seem to think you’re much of a man unless you pretty much spit on women.”
“He-Man Woman-Haters' Club, gotcha." He sniffed disdainfully. "Glad I never had much contact with that group before my job. At any rate, did Bogdanovic ever talk to you directly?”
“No, it was always through Marina or through one of his men--that one time at the party, I mean. I don’t know what was up with that except that Marina would get pissed if he got too close to me. He hated women but he seemed a little scared of her.”
“That’s...unusual.” His gaze was suddenly piercing. “Of course, Marina wasn’t at the party.”
“Not unless she was upstairs the whole time. If she had shown I would have known something was up.” Even if, as it turns out, I’m naive and gullible as hell. Damn it.
“That makes sense.” He was down to a small chunk of his sandwich, which he stuffed in his mouth and worked on before swallowing and sitting forward toward her. “So...Emily. What do you do for fun, besides learning exotic dancing? I’m assuming that you don’t collect shoes.”
“Ew, no, I’m not Marina. Or Imelda Marcos. When I have something left over after bills I usually save it unless something breaks, which...well, that happens all the time. For fun, though, I like movies.”
His eyebrow quirked. “Movies? What sort?”
“Film noir. Casablanca is my favorite. In fact, pretty much anything with Bogart in it is up there.” She offered a slightly embarrassed smile.
“Hm. Well, that’s easy to arrange at least, while we’re stuck here.” Frustration entered his tone briefly and she wanted to reach for him, rub his arm, soothe him a little. But there was no doing it. His body language stayed closed, despite his more relaxed expression.
It frustrated her. She had tasted his mouth, heard his moans, felt the smooth, taut skin of his cock between her fingers. But he kept acting like nothing had happened between them. Why? Did he worry that “the enemy” might manipulate him with sex? That was a laugh.
She was the one feeling manipulated. She should hate him for keeping her captive...but she couldn’t. She was addled, her priorities completely screwed; despite the complete illogic of it she felt angrier at him for not making love to her than for his keeping her here. The latter was a mistake caused by Marina's trickery. The former...was just ridiculous.
They were alone, he wanted it, she was more than willing...and every damned time something happened to get him back on the job he snapped back into it like someone had flipped a switch in his brain.
What would change about that after they shared an orgasm or two...or three...or four? Nothing, she suspected, except that he'd be a lot more relaxed. But she doubted she could convince him of that.
They spent the day knocking around the apartment, sometimes avoiding each other, sometimes settling in for some quiet conversation. Usually that meant he asked a little about her, a little about Marina, and a little about what had happened at the party. Never entirely off duty.
But she could understand that; he had said that Bogdanovic had attacked his men. People were hurt, maybe dead. And he was still supposed to be here i
nterrogating her, even if he might possibly be getting the idea that he had been tricked into kidnapping the wrong woman.
He didn’t talk about himself much, which wasn’t a surprise: he was a secret government agent, after all. But finally, in the late afternoon, after they had watched The Maltese Falcon on Pay Per View, he sat back from the popcorn bowl and said, “I actually thought about being an actor, back in my teens.
“Yeah?” She turned from watching the credits to listen. “Screen or stage?”
“Stage, it’s more intimate. My mother had done a bit of that in college. She had loved it, and it made me curious.” He sipped his lemonade and set the glass down.
It was perfect: just enough tang, just enough sweet, and he’d kept the seeds out. How was it that she had found this man, who was incredibly hot, amazing (so far) in bed, smart, funny, and even able to cook--and because of that bitch Marina they were separated by a tissue of lies?
“So why’d you decide on this spooky secret agent stuff instead?”
He chuckled. “Well, my parents were immigrants. My mother was pregnant when they lost their home, and this became our new home. Ear--America has treated us well, and I wanted to give back.”
“That’s romantic of you.”
He immediately had to fight down a wider smile. “...well. After what they had been through, my parents became enamored of certain ideals, and they instilled them in me. It isn’t patriotism per se: more of a general humanism.”
She smiled back...but a thought nagged at her. “And Bogdanovic doesn’t count as human.”
His smile died, and his eyes cut away from hers so that he wasn’t directing the sudden flare of rage her way. “He shouldn’t even be a citizen of this planet. He doesn’t deserve to breathe its air.”
“Hey, I’m right there with you,” she replied in a soothing tone. “That son of a bitch is why we’re stuck in this place and you think I’m your enemy, instead of us catching a film festival, fooling around all night, and breakfast at eleven.”
His hand shook slightly as he set his lemonade down. “Pancakes?” His tone sounded more hopeful than joking, and she couldn’t help but smile.
