Best Kept Lies

by Helena Maeve

  “Lots of things you shouldn’t do, yet here you are… You’ll like the wine.”

  It seemed likely. Karim’s taste for fine vintages was only matched by his knack for pairing a good wine with a good meal.

  “Do I smell something cooking?”

  “Yes, dear.” Karim smiled at him over the glass. “I got supper ready while you were dozing on my couch.”

  I didn’t even hear you come in.

  It was no surprise. Karim was the only person Grigory could trust anymore. The only one who knew him. Since Normandy, they’d settled into a vague sort of understanding. Karim had dropped by the hotel unannounced. Grigory had taken the last train to Ravenna when he couldn’t sleep.

  Danger hovered in the stroke of Karim’s fingers through his hair, but Grigory didn’t fear it.

  He ducked his head and dutifully sipped his wine. As Karim had warned, he liked its sharp, tangy flavor.

  “Young,” he commented.

  “Just ripe. I’m making risotto.”

  “How domestic of you.”

  Karim huffed. “When any meal could be your last…believe me, you want to make it count.”

  There was no sting to the words. Unlike Grigory, Karim hadn’t reported back to his handler. He hadn’t offered any commentary on the botched attempt at securing a Russian informant.

  As far as Section was concerned, he was still in the wind. Every minute he spent laying low in Italy was another minute SIS operatives could come crashing through the door.

  “That reminds me,” Karim said, “I should set the…”

  Before he could make it more than a pace from the couch, Grigory caught his hand. His reflexes weren’t as swift as Karim’s, but he still managed to startle him. He felt it in the tremor that raced up Karim’s arm, the stop-start motion to break free that Karim couldn’t quite arrest.

  “Lots of things you should do, right?” Turn yourself in. Turn me in… The list went on.

  Grigory relaxed his grip and, when Karim didn’t pull away, circled Karim’s wrist instead. Glossy eyes and a line of tannins purpling his bottom lip did not make him unsteady on his feet. They just meant he wasn’t on his first glass.

  Something in Grigory’s chest thawed at the thought that even Karim needed a little liquid courage to keep up. He tipped forward slowly, keen on giving Karim all the time he needed to retreat. It was desperately important, though Grigory couldn’t quite process why, to make sure that Karim wanted to kiss him just as badly.

  He got his answer in the rough pressure of Karim’s mouth on his, a whimper catching in his throat.

  That’s right. We don’t do diffidence.

  Karim broke free of his hold and palmed the back of his neck, his fist like a half collar.

  “You’ll spill the wine,” Grigory bit out, lungs burning from lack of oxygen.

  “Fuck the wine.”

  “I’d rather—”

  Fortunately, Karim kissed him again before Grigory could finish the trite quip. Desire ignited with every sharp press of teeth into his lip, every burst of warm breath on his cheek. Karim was ravenous. He pushed him back into the couch until Grigory threatened to fall over.

  “Bed,” he rasped. “Please, please…”

  What he wanted, he couldn’t have out here unless they stopped, unless Karim went to retrieve the slick. That wouldn’t work. Grigory was sufficiently self-aware to know that once he had Karim out of his clothes, he wouldn’t want to let him go.

  They left the stemware in the living room—one glass on the coffee table, the other on a plaster molding jutting out of the wall at hip level. In a house full of quirks, untidiness came with the territory.

  The bedroom door banged open, door knob slamming into the wardrobe. Grigory spared a thought for chipped wood before his world narrowed again to the heat of Karim’s body against his, hands roaming greedily over his hips and flanks. He gasped when Karim seized hold of the plackets of his shirt and pulled harshly.

  “That’s the second shirt you’ve ruined.”

  “Bill me,” Karim growled, and leaned in to mouth at his collarbones.

  His frenzy seemed to come out of nowhere, but Grigory had been lying in wait, picking apart the jokes, the tension between them, over the last days for some sign that he wasn’t about to jump into the abyss all by himself. Their late-night romps had been quick and far from gentle, but they were nothing to this.

  Karim shoved a hand down the back of his slacks and pulled him close, lapping greedily at a pebbled nipple. He knew precisely what his mouth did to Grigory. He’d figured out his weaknesses. He took advantage of his need when he pressed a dry fingertip between his cheeks, rubbing lightly at his clenched hole.

  “Oh, Christ.”

  Karim laughed. “Close enough.”

  Sacrilege still tweaked the twisted coil of guilt behind Grigory’s breastbone, but it was impossible to concentrate long enough to feel any solid regret. Pleasure ricocheted up his spine and jounced back down with a flick of teeth at his chest. Karim encouraged him to move his hips, the pressure on his cock seesawing between discomfort and fucking bliss.

  His only comfort was that Karim was just as hard against his thigh, the yoga pants doing little to disguise the swell of his erection. He wanted to beg for it, to get down on his knees and pull Karim into his mouth. Between one shaky inhale and a long, drawn-out moan, he felt Karim shift, the pressure of a warm body bearing him into the wardrobe door falling away.

  Karim’s warm breath gusted over his cock.

  Grigory forced his eyes open. The sight of Karim on his knees nearly drove him over the edge. Again that pull of sentiment boomeranged through him. Karim wasn’t the first. He was just another guy indulging Grigory’s unlicensed proclivities.

  And yet he looked divine as he bent his head over Grigory’s cock and swallowed him down with greedy mouthfuls.

  “Oh, God…”

  Grigory anchored both hands in his hair, desperate to drive himself forward. The sweet, hot haven of Karim’s mouth had occupied his fantasies since that first night. If he hadn’t asked for it again, it was because he figured Karim wasn’t into giving head. And that was okay, too. That could work for them.

  It was a pity, when he was so goddamn good at it.

  The slow, delicious tug of his foreskin slipping over the head of his erection all but melted the bones in Grigory’s legs. “That’s it. That’s it, oh…”

  He didn’t need fancy technique. This was enough. Electricity crawled up his thighs as heat pooled in the pit of his stomach. He dug his fingers into Karim’s hair, burning with need. He could come like this. He could fill Karim’s mouth, watch him swallow.

  His insides pitched, longing as familiar as dread.

  It took every last ounce of self-control he possessed to tug Karim off.

  “Get the lube.”

  The men Grigory had slept with in the past fit into one or the other category. They wanted him pliant and mute, or calling the shots. Bent over the bed and breathing in the cheap detergent of motel bed sheets or coaxing and cajoling. No overlap. No in between.

  Karim shattered his system with a brutal shove, a kiss to the back of his neck.

  Grigory toed off his socks and stepped out of his slacks and underwear. He shivered as he knelt on the edge of the mattress, his back to Karim. The rattle of the bedside drawer sent a shiver up his spine. Karim could pull out anything—a gun, a garrote. He owned a cheese cutter. Grigory had seen it lying coiled and harmless in a kitchen cupboard.

  The thought bolted as Karim pressed a hand between his shoulder blades and nudged him down to the sheets. “This how you want it? Spread open for me?”

  “Yes,” Grigory whined into his fist. He trembled with the slow journey of Karim’s palms up his back.

  Tension hunkered down instead of fleeing his muscles when Karim pinched at his traps. His skin tingled in response. The heave of his ribcage had nothing to do with fear, but the pace of his breaths amounted to the same thing.


  Karim drew a leisurely circuit with his fingertips before finally letting his body rest against Grigory’s spine. Heat radiated from his naked flesh. Grigory hadn’t even heard him undress. It didn’t matter now. He was all too aware of the heft of Karim’s cock arrowing over the slope of his cheeks, warm like the barrel of a smoking gun.

  He should have resented Karim for making him wait, need escalating inside him until he thought it would consume him. He didn’t. The sharp sting of contempt was only directed at himself, once Karim pressed two slick fingers against his hole and worked them inside.

  “Yeah, that’s right… Scream for me, love. Let the neighbors hear you.”

  Deliberately insubordinate, Grigory clamped a hand over his mouth in hopes of drowning out his own cries.

  He hated Karim a little bit for laughing at him, just not enough to do anything about it.

  Karim also had clever, long digits and he knew precisely how to touch Grigory to unravel his resolve. He had him moaning and mewling within a handful of strokes, fists coiled in the sheets instead of blocking out sound. He pumped his fingers for a few moments more, grinning against the wing of Grigory’s shoulder.

  “I’d do this all day, if I could. You make the prettiest sounds.”

  “Ngh, please…” Don’t, Grigory meant, but another tender jab to his prostate cut him off.

  “Just a hypothetical,” said Karim. “Even I don’t possess that kind of restraint.”

  Grigory had an inkling that he tried to be gentle as he retrieved his fingers. Their absence still hurt, his inner muscles throbbing for the split-second delay between Karim fingering him open and aligning his cock with Grigory’s hole.

  No amount of clawing at sheets could secure Grigory against that achingly slow first thrust. He sighed with it, sinking into the mattress. Karim held him by the nape, his hold almost gentle, and rubbed his hip as if in apology. If the touch was meant to distract Grigory from the leisurely drag of his length against the tight-stretched rim, it failed. He felt it, sensation sparking along every nerve.

  He wasn’t sure if it was Karim pulling him back or his own limbs doing the work of slamming down onto his dick. He really didn’t care, as long as Karim picked up the pace, fucking into him in earnest. His own cock scraped the sheets with every other thrust, blood pooling beneath taut-stretched skin as his balls fetched up close to his body.

  After a few tries, Karim pressed in deep, glancing off his prostate. The burst of pleasure radiated all the way to the flared tip of Grigory’s erection. He howled with it, forgetting all about neighbors and keeping a low profile. He squeezed around Karim out of instinct more than thought.

  It was worth it to hear him swear in that pleasure-wracked voice.

  “You’re close,” Grigory panted. “Aren’t you? God, I can feel it…”

  Karim huffed out a breath, his exhales tight with exertion. “You’re one to talk.” As if to prove it, he slid a hand between Grigory’s flank and his knee, and grasped him tightly. “Fucking dripping… Bet I can make you come before I do.”

  “Is—is this a race?”

  Their rhythm had flagged, which probably counted as cheating, but Grigory didn’t mind. His whole body vibrated, strummed by the pluck of Karim’s fingers around his erection. He turned his head, tried for a smirk. Hoped for a kiss.

  He couldn’t see more than a flicker of Karim’s profile. His jet-black hair was slicked back, skin sheened with perspiration.

  “It’s…whatever you want it to be,” Karim breathed and pressed his thumb into the head of Grigory’s cock.

  Definitely cheating. Grigory came with a muffled cry, caught between Karim’s strokes and his insatiable momentum. He blinked back tears as pleasure crested and retreated, seesawing until he could barely breathe. Karim pulsed inside him, just as spent.

  His exhales tickled Grigory’s ear, but it was his thudding heart that kept Grigory from wriggling too much.

  “You mean it?”

  “Hmm?” Karim murmured.

  Grigory knew he’d picked the very worst time to ask. He pressed on regardless. “Whatever I want it to be?”

  “Well… Depends on the ‘it’.” As wrung out as he was, Karim still found it within him to demur. “I am a fugitive…”

  “Mercenary sounds better.”

  “Thought you said that’s impossible. Threat to the system and all that…”

  Grigory squirmed until he could lay his head on a bent forearm, Karim still warm and heavy against his back. The tension in his limbs was a dead giveaway. The cautious hope in his deep, black eyes unveiled the full scope of Karim’s fears.

  “Like I said,” Grigory murmured, “mercenary sounds better.”

  Karim gazed at him quizzically. “Are you sure?”

  His body humming with pleasure, Grigory palmed Karim’s cheek and brought him down into a soft, searing kiss.

  Also available from Pride Publishing:

  In the Presence of Mine Enemy

  Helena Maeve

  Excerpt

  Chapter One

  The next seven squares down demanded a synonym for betrayal. Hailey rapped his pencil against the paper’s fluttering corner. Treason. He hesitated on the last letter as the waitress glided over with his espresso.

  She offered him a beatific smile. “Anything else, sir?” It was November and the harsh breeze whipped at her black skirt like greedy hands.

  “Thank you, no,” Hailey answered, his French sufficiently accented to mark him for an outsider. He’d been trying to shed his Britishness for twenty-five years, to little avail. Perhaps that was why his superiors seldom posted him abroad. Too valuable an assent, my arse. They hadn’t felt the same way about Osma or Vaughan, and both were throwaways from the competition, living reservoirs of classified information that their American brethren would’ve gobbled up in a heartbeat.

  If only GCHQ didn’t play fast and loose with their assignments…

  Hailey chased the bitter thought with a sip of equally bitter coffee.

  The crossword puzzle wouldn’t solve itself. He turned back to the newspaper. He could hear the breakers in the distance, a steady whoosh and churn of whitecaps crashing against jagged rocks. In summer, the giddy yowling of tourists and families traveling with all their brood would have drowned out the white noise. Hailey had deliberately chosen the off-season to avoid the racket.

  Well, that, and the low rates didn’t hurt, either.

  His modest civil servant income had been halved since he’d retired and he was fast becoming one of those dreadful penny-pinchers who counted their change in supermarkets. In a few years, the metamorphosis would likely culminate in a cheerless but highly cogent transition from his semi-detached in South London to a room at some moderately well-appointed care facility somewhere in the Midlands.

  He would gladly trade London’s callow youths—once a factor of the city’s appeal—for fresh air and clean country living.

  He had talked about it often enough with Bernie.

  Don’t think about that now.

  The tire-screech of doublethink clamped down on the unbidden memory like a lid on a pressure cooker. Hailey felt the prick of tension behind his eyes. He should have gotten new reading glasses before he left for his holiday. His old pair was giving him a headache.

  Yes—he pinched the bridge of his nose—the glasses are to blame. Not the twenty-five years of disciplining his thoughts into order whenever he was in public, when he didn’t know what a twitch of muscle at the corner of his lips could betray to the not so casual observer. Not the debilitating, logical consequence of excising sentiment as soon as it took seed.

  A screech of metal chair legs against the pavement brought him up short. He expected a clumsy pensioner, or the charming waitress snagging her apron by accident—the kind of minor misadventures that were as common as they were meaningless in the real world.

  He did not expect to see a pale, bearded stranger fold himself into a seat at his table. The shock value wore off quicker
than a summer fling.

  Hailey froze, the newspaper wrinkling in his fist.

  “Ah,” the man drawled, “you do remember me. I was running a bet with myself all the way here.”

  “Did you win?” Hailey heard himself ask. The words were dredged up smoothly, produced by whatever part of his brain wasn’t engaged in floundering panic.

  Could he run? Was there any safe place he could run to? He wiped a clammy hand against his trousers. Don’t be ridiculous.

  He hadn’t seen Adam in years, ever since an incident in Eastern Europe had foreshortened their acquaintance.

  He’d been hoping to avoid the pleasure.

  Adam didn’t answer. He merely held up a hand to flag down the waitress. Hailey was ashamed of the jolt in his chest, the stop-start urge to duck under the table in case bullets were about to start flying. He knew Adam had noticed. It was there in the crooked ellipse of his smile. He looked like a predator satisfied to have cornered its exhausted quarry.

  His French was perfect, all smooth, round vowels and rasping consonants. The smile that tugged at his lips when he spoke would’ve been enough to melt hearts, were it not for his eyes. Malice lived there now, darkening his irises to a deep emerald green.

  Despite himself, Hailey remembered the last time they’d met in the bowels of Whitehall. Adam Asche had been easy with his smiles then, too. It was what had gotten him in trouble in the first place. Or part of it, anyway. Lesser agents screwed up worse and didn’t pay as steep a price. Such was the nature of the job—justice was relative.

  “You give yourself away, Mr Hailey,” Adam said when they were alone again. “Black trench coat, black gloves?” He clucked his tongue. “Not very up to the minute. You’re not in mourning, are you?”

  His derisive nettling stung more than any juvenile barb about his sartorial choices. Hailey smiled. “Would it matter if I was?”

  Adam snorted a breath of mirthless laughter. “Once a spy, always a spy, is that it? Fine, don’t tell me. We’ll just sit and stare at each other. Isn’t that what old dogs do best?” He sprawled nonchalantly in his plastic seat, his back to the promenade and his knees splayed wide apart. He might as well have been shouting ‘I’m not afraid of you’ for all to hear.