Best Kept Lies

by Helena Maeve

  Replaying the events of the past twenty-four hours en route to the airport brought Grigory no more clarity than previous attempts. Nothing he could have done differently about the hit on the CIA retiree would’ve prevented retaliation. The order hadn’t come from him any more than this trip to France was his idea.

  A whiff of plastic and microwave-warmed omelet hit him as soon as he boarded his flight. The aisle clogged with passengers hurrying to stow their belongings and children who would not behave. The space between his seat, halfway down from the right-hand wing, and the one in front was made even narrower by a lowered table.

  Grigory fussed with the latch, then sat down and fussed some more. It wouldn’t stick. Or his hands weren’t strong enough to make it stay up.

  His hands were only good for one thing.

  “Let me help,” said the unfortunate passenger in the middle seat. He reached across without preamble and clipped the table into the upright position.

  I’m going mad. Grigory fixed his gaze to the back of the seat in front of him, the little tuft of curly carroty hair rising over the headrest. He was going to end up like Sergei’s widow. It was only a matter of time.

  “Grigory,” murmured the man beside him.

  He couldn’t help it. He had to look.

  He looked so fast he heard his neck crack.

  Karim winced on his behalf.

  Chapter Nine

  According to the airline, the ticket in Grigory’s inner pocket and the laws of physics, flying Moscow–Paris took about as much time as flying Moscow–Rome. Both were wrong.

  Grigory knew for a fact that the seconds dragged, that every minute between take-off and landing was an hour. He pretended to sleep to keep his eyes off Karim. He gazed out the window at the wisps of gray-black cloud because he didn’t trust himself to glance toward the aisle and see Karim beside him, eating or reading the in-flight magazine, very much alive.

  He almost snagged a hand around his wrist as the plane juddered before landing. Self-control won out, luckily, and he was spared the mortification of clinging to a man whose execution he had personally ordered.

  At baggage claim, it occurred to Grigory that he had no idea where Karim was headed and no way to communicate to him that his mission involved him leaving Paris immediately. There was no time for a dead drop, a clever exchange of coded messages. Grigory should have thought of that on the five hour flight.

  He searched for Karim in the taxi queue, but the bustle of travelers made it hard to see faces clearly. He was wary of attracting suspicion. Disheartened, he boarded his cab and asked to be taken to the Paris Nord station.

  “Bet you thought you’d be rid of me by now,” Karim said as he penetrated into the empty compartment a beat before the train pulled out of station.

  Grigory sat up in his seat and glanced around.

  “We’re alone,” Karim told him. “Do you think I wouldn’t take precautions?” He took the aisle seat across from Grigory, the picture of repose.

  “How did you find me?”

  Karim clucked his tongue. “You think you’re the only ones who can pull surveillance?”

  “We heard rumors. About you.” Being dead.

  His expression darkened, if only slightly. “That’s not something I want to talk about right now.”

  It was all Grigory wanted to know. How could Karim be alive when both CIA and Oksana agreed he had been put out to pasture? How was he sitting beside Grigory, so casual, so real, when by all accounts he should have been cold in the ground?

  He sighed, clamping down on every unanswered question. “All right. Then what do you want to talk about?”

  “Who says I want to talk at all?”

  Karim had the capacity for tenderness. He’d proved it in Grigory’s bed, in making him that revoltingly delicious lasagna. But he wasn’t gentle when he cupped Grigory’s chin and kissed him hard enough for their teeth to clang together. He exchanged his grip for Grigory’s hair, holding him in place as a stuttered gasp threatened to spill from Grigory’s throat.

  “Wait, someone… Someone could come in.”

  Karim was strong, but Grigory didn’t mind a little hair pulling if it meant he got to make his objections known. Any second now he’d come to his senses to tear free of Karim’s hold. Any second.

  “We’ll hear the door,” Karim ground out, devouring him with frantic kisses.

  Grigory huffed. “And look like we’ve been necking like teenagers?” He was sure that his face had acquired the shade of a ripe tomato. His lips tingled with the touch-memory of Karim’s kiss.

  He wanted more.

  “We’re in France,” Karim pointed out. “Teenagers aren’t the only ones to indulge.”

  His logic escaped Grigory, but before he could protest, Karim leaned over the armrest and cupped Grigory’s cock through the thick wool of his slacks.

  Breath catching, Grigory grabbed for his wrist. That was as far as he made it.

  Karim chose that moment to surge into another kiss, this one sweet and gentle, the barest flick of tongue against his lips to make Grigory surrender.

  Token resistance slipped from him even as he tightened his fist around Karim’s hand. It wasn’t a plea for him to stop. That ship had sailed, was receding fast into the horizon. Grigory shivered with what he suddenly realized was bone-deep longing.

  He groped for purchase on Karim’s shirt, made to cup the back of his neck and draw him close only to discover he couldn’t wait for Karim to pop open his zipper. He’d started to reach for his fly when the door at the far end of the car hissed open.

  Karim pulled away as if stung. “Your ticket?”

  Grigory didn’t trust himself to speak. He peeled open his jacket and let Karim reach inside. He was good at helping himself.

  True to form, Karim wasted no time liberating the train ticket and handing it to the conductor along with his own. He exchanged a few words of French with the uniformed young woman, keeping her gaze firmly on him while Grigory tried to will away his erection.

  “I’m mortified,” Grigory gritted out once they were along again.

  “Why?”

  Karim considered their perforated tickets for a moment, then slotted both into the inner pocket of his black leather jacket. He’d dressed for the road—perfectly forgettable jeans, boat shoes, scarf tucked into the collar of his sweater, and a jacket that had seen better days.

  There could be no question as to why he was headed to the seaside.

  Grigory ran a shaky hand over his face. “No reason. Never mind. I’m an idiot.”

  “Well, I can’t argue with that…” Unprompted, Karim delicately laid his palm over Grigory’s thigh. “Tell me to stop.”

  “Would you?”

  “Of course.”

  Grigory rolled his eyes. “Why do I even ask? You’re a trained manipulator.”

  “So are you.”

  I’m so much worse than that. The sound of slamming doors flashed through his mind. Was it only five, six hours ago that he’d left Sergei’s widow to face her grief alone after condemning her husband? Grigory squeezed his eyes shut.

  He hated himself for the pained sound that escaped his throat. Karim’s palm on his cock was gentler than their trysts had ever been.

  “Tell me to stop,” Karim demanded again.

  Grigory sucked his lips into his mouth, defiant. No.

  His ears rang with every click of metal teeth as Karim lowered his zipper. His pulse raced, adrenaline flooding his blood from the first scrape of fingertips along his cock. A familiar, potent combination of desire and shame rushed through him.

  Karim tightened his grip, triggering an unbidden moan.

  “Oh, Ch—”

  “Shh.”

  The pressure of a hand on his mouth was enough to snap Grigory’s eyes open. He blinked in the sight of Karim bent casually over the armrest, his gaze intent.

  “I’d love to hear you scream, but I reckon you don’t want an audience, do you?”

  He
at rushed to Grigory’s face. It had taken him years to work up the nerve to have sex with the lights on. He wasn’t an exhibitionist. He didn’t believe in taking risks. Yet here he was, out in the open, with another man’s hand down his trousers.

  He rolled his hips into the slow drag of Karim’s fist, gripping the armrests for an anchor. It felt so good. Every flicker of friction ignited shivers under his skin, little earthquakes threatening to tear up the very last of his shredded self-control.

  “Harder?” Karim guessed.

  Grigory nodded, licking at Karim’s palm. He didn’t mind the sticky pressure of fingers against his lips anymore. Karim would keep him quiet. Karim would see him over the edge because somehow, impossibly, Karim was still alive. And Karim obliged, jerking him fast and pitiless, never slackening his pace or his grip on Grigory.

  Orgasm ripped through him without warning. He bucked against Karim’s hold, thrusting desperately, even as the scorching burst of pleasure leached into his bloodstream, locking his limbs and twisting at his insides. It was too much. It wasn’t enough. Karim scraped his thumb along his Adam’s apple and Grigory briefly wished he’d press down.

  This should hurt a little.

  He deserved it.

  Talented and attentive as he was, Karim was no mind reader. He coaxed the last of Grigory’s release with slow strokes until his tremors subsided, then cleaned him up and used an Air France wet napkin to wipe off his sticky fingers. He would’ve tucked him back into his clothes, too, Grigory suspected, but he batted away his hands before he could follow through.

  It was almost two hours to Noyelles-sur-Mer and they had already spent twenty minutes having life-affirming sex. Grigory’s stomach churned as he braced for the other hour and a half.

  “What?” Karim scoffed. “You’re not even going to offer to reciprocate?”

  All the blood that had fled down to his spent cock rushed suddenly to Grigory’s head. “I don’t…” want to do that, not here. What if we’re seen? I’m already in trouble.

  That crooked smirk on Karim’s lips had no business making him even more attractive than he already was.

  “Asshole,” Grigory muttered.

  “You can make it up to me at the hotel.”

  “What hotel?” he shot back, striving to appear as pokerfaced as possible. Mind-blowing hand jobs aside, he wasn’t on his way to Normandy on a lark.

  Karim was still an enemy agent—one that shouldn’t be standing anymore.

  “Does Section know where you are?” Grigory wondered. “Or do they think you’re in a casket leaving Rome? The CIA seemed convinced your people disposed of you…”

  It didn’t strike Grigory that he might have crossed any lines until silence stretched between them, the whir and rattle of the train the only sound in the long, empty carriage. He resisted the urge to prod Karim for answers. How much do you know sounded particularly incriminating.

  “You ever wonder,” Karim said at last, “which came first? Section or Directorate S?”

  “No.” He already knew. In the sixties, the KGB both upped and divided its approach to foreign operations. Deep cover became as necessary a feature of the Cold War as the nuclear arms race.

  Britain’s role had been one of mediator until the collapse of the Berlin Wall. Then their interests in the Middle East had required the surrender of a certain moral high ground. Section had its claws buried deep in Russia’s sphere of influence, but Directorate S came first. They were better at it, barring the occasional agent in a body bag.

  “You didn’t answer my question,” Grigory pointed out.

  Karim smiled, cryptic. “I think I just did.”

  * * * *

  The hotel was a small affair—‘boutique’, the brochure called it. Four stars, sea views over the bay, breakfast included. Feather pillows. Grigory made the appropriate oohs and aahs as he was introduced to the remote control and air conditioning, a service for which he tipped the bellboy five euros. His single suitcase remained at the foot of the bed while he went about checking the probable hiding spots for a wire or two.

  He’d already asked for another room after he was shown to the hotel’s first offer—top floor, with a separate sitting area and a Jacuzzi bathtub. A fear of heights was the reason he gave for the switch. The top story rooms had been designed with a whole wall of floor-to-ceiling windows. Lower floors only boasted a couple of measly French widows.

  It was an extra precaution Grigory wouldn’t have bothered with if this was just another job. Drawing attention to himself went against interests.

  It was equally imprudent to let his pulse skip a beat at the gentle rap of knuckles on the door. Grigory had a hard time getting himself under control. He slowed his steps just before he reached for the handle.

  He didn’t want to appear desperate.

  Karim certainly looked nonchalant as he turned at the creak of hinges, his hands in his pockets, a smile on his lips. “What happened to the penthouse?”

  He’d lingered downstairs long enough to see Grigory ask for another room and hear the number.

  Poor judgment craved company.

  “Thought you’d prefer it,” Grigory said and opened his door wider.

  Karim swaggered through with a smirk that would’ve been mocking on another mouth. “Not bad… The view will improve when the clouds scatter.”

  Grigory turned the lock. “Do you think so?”

  “Mhm.”

  “I don’t have high hopes. No,” he told Karim, when the other man made to turn around. “Stay where you are.” He liked that view of Karim silhouetted by the fast-fading afternoon light, one shoulder pressed to the window frame, his hips askew.

  Grigory toed off his dress shoes and peeled off his jacket. His heart throbbed.

  “I’m a prime target for a sniper,” Karim commented brazenly.

  “No angle.” I checked. That had been another reason for changing the room—north-facing, second floor windows overlooking the bay were impervious to long-range rifles fired even from the beach.

  “Then why don’t you want me moving? Oh…” Restless, Karim twisted at the waist in time to see Grigory step out of his slacks and underwear. “That’s a good reason.”

  A smile threatened to quirk up the corners of Grigory’s mouth. He beat it back. Crisp air blew from the AC unit high above the window. His skin bloomed with goose bumps as he dropped to his knees before Karim.

  Neither of them spoke.

  The silence stretched—a feline sinking claws into Grigory’s spine. He willed his hands to cease their intolerable quaking and reached for the zipper on Karim’s jeans. He’d been here before—not with Karim, true, but with enough men that the act had long lost all sense of novelty. Some lovers were better at it than others. Some liked to fuck his mouth—or figured out what Grigory liked and turned this into the first act in a mutually satisfying romp.

  He didn’t know how to categorize Karim. Mystery persisted as he tugged out his cock, pants and underwear shoved down harshly rather than removed. The more Karim looked like someone who’d wandered in off the street and the more Grigory could relax into the act.

  The first flick of his tongue over the head of Karim’s erection dispelled the illusion.

  “Oh, fuck…” Karim thrust his head back against the wall, a long guttural moan tearing free of his chest.

  Grigory tightened his grip around his shaft. He was well acquainted with Karim’s dick. He knew what it felt like inside him, in his fist. Digging into his hip as he slept, a question mark made flesh. He stroked down with his fist as he relaxed his mouth and took him deep.

  He thrilled with Karim’s groan, the minute shift of his body. You like that? Emboldened, Grigory pulled up fractionally, circling his tongue around the flared, silky tip. Karim’s panted curse was his reward. He did it again, greedy for the full repertoire of moans and sighs Karim could yield.

  The pressure of a hand on the back of his head only spurred him on. Grigory pushed back into the hold. Do it. Come on.
Now was not the time to be shy. He wanted Karim to take charge, to use him like an instrument. Far lesser men had done it in the past.

  Karim got the message. His breaths ragged, he knotted a strong fist in Grigory’s hair, pulling him down on the next thrust. It would’ve been a harsh, punishing motion if it wasn’t for the litany of praise dribbling from his lips.

  He cupped Grigory’s cheek with his free hand, stroking lightly at the hinge of his jaw. “So good… So good for me, love, oh—”

  The catch in his voice was as good a warning as any. Grigory fastened his lips around the head of his erection, and paired his mouth with the motions of his hand, suckling even as he jerked him off. He barely got a few graceless strokes in.

  Karim’s muscles locked, the grip he had on Grigory’s hair bordering on painful, and came.

  Heat flooded Grigory’s mouth, cloying and bitter. He swallowed it down without protest. It was worth the head rush, the coughing fit, just to see Karim’s whole body sag against the wall, a disbelieving look on his features.

  “Come here,” Karim pleaded, groping at Grigory’s shoulders with weak hands.

  He went, almost grateful when Karim kissed him hard, when he held him so tightly and desperately, as if he never wanted to let go. Lies were what they did best.

  Chapter Ten

  Karim’s fingertips were a light, almost ticklish weight on the back of his neck. They were also all the proof Grigory needed to know that he hadn’t succeeded in exhausting his partner.

  He hid a smirk into the sheets. He’d have to try harder next time.

  “You awake?” Karim wondered. The gentle caress drifted down Grigory’s spine, between his shoulder blades, lower and lower until he hit the edge of the sheet.

  Grigory sighed into the pillow. “Maybe.” Are you going to stop there?

  “I was thinking, just now…”

  “Of?” Grigory tried to mitigate the hopeful note in his voice. Since his recruitment, he had gone weeks and months without a lover. He wasn’t so keen on physical contact that he felt a need to hoard his pleasure like a magpie.