by Cindy Dees
“What about me?” Katie asked.
“You’re collateral damage. Not to mention your obvious innocence and naive desire to do good works are the perfect cover for the fact that I was sent in as bait.”
“To catch what?”
“Or who,” he added. “Excellent question. My continued safety and yours may very well depend on answering it.”
She smiled seductively and murmured, “When we get out of here, will you please tell me what the hell’s going on?”
His gaze flashed for a moment and he blatantly looked down at her breasts. “Talk is not at the top of my agenda when we get out of here.”
Her pulse went crazy and her thong got damp in a matter of seconds. But that other stuff, the who-was-trying-to-kill-them stuff, was important, dammit. She couldn’t afford to let him distract her.
“What’s the gambit tonight?” she asked. “Chat up everyone until someone reacts wrong?”
“Clever girl.”
“Want me to flirt with them and throw them off balance?”
“No,” he answered sharply. “You’re mine.”
Well, then. Didn’t that just make her thong even a little more wet? They wandered around the reception for the next hour, making inconsequential small talk with any number of foreign dignitaries and staffers from D.U.
And then Katie turned around and lurched in shock against his arm. “What is it?” Alex asked quickly.
“Uncle Charlie just walked in.”
Alex muttered something under his breath in Russian that she would assume was not an expression of joy.
Her uncle, a gray-haired man in his early sixties, who wore the decades elegantly, wasted no time coming over to her. “Katie, sweetie. Are you all right? You took ten years off my life with that phone call.”
“Thanks so much for the help, Uncle Charlie. I couldn’t think of who else to call on such short notice. I’m so sorry I bugged you.”
“What’s the point of having influence if I can’t use it for good now and then?” he replied charmingly.
“Uncle Charlie, I’d like to introduce you to my working partner, Dr. Alex Peters.”
“Mui vrestretilise prezhde,” her uncle said to Alex.
Alex answered emotionlessly in English, “Yes, we have met before. When I was much younger.”
Uncle Charlie switched to English. “Your father was a worthy adversary.”
“I imagine he still is,” Alex replied drily.
“Just so. What are you up to these days?”
“Delivering babies until I was rudely interrupted by a brush war.”
Katie frowned. Uncle Charlie had a predatory glint in his eyes that she wasn’t accustomed to. But she damned well recognized it from seeing it in Alex’s eyes. Here was a master spy at work, not her mother’s laid-back brother relaxing with family.
“How’d you two get out of Zaghastan? It sounded pretty dodgy over there.”
“Several kind souls provided us with unexpected rides,” Alex answered smoothly.
Rides, plural? Katie mentally frowned. Oh. Both the plane and the four-wheeler Alex stole from the guy tracking them.
“Bit of luck for you,” Charlie noted drily.
“Make no mistake, luck had nothing to do with it,” Alex retorted.
Charlie’s head dipped slightly as if acknowledging some coded message in Alex’s words. “Maybe someday we will meet again in the wake of less stressful circumstances.”
“Don’t hold your breath,” Alex snapped.
Somebody called a greeting to Uncle Charlie from across the room. “Don’t be a stranger, Katie,” he said smoothly. He gave her a peck on the cheek and drifted away.
Alex scowled into his champagne glass as if he was contemplating murdering someone sooner rather than later. She leaned on his forearm, bringing her barely clad breast into contact with his biceps, forcing him to acknowledge her. “What was that all about?”
“You tell me.”
Danger rolled off him, wave after wave of it. He was seriously pissed off about something. As much as she wanted to break through his emotional walls, and as much as she wanted to try the brand of sex he preferred, she wasn’t sure she wanted to go there with him this furious.
“I’ve seen enough,” Alex announced.
Crud. She was hoping to get him to stick around a little longer, get a little more champagne down him, smooth the rough edges of his temper a little.
“You look disappointed,” he muttered. “Scared to be alone with me?”
“A little. I was hoping to get some more booze down you.”
“Why?”
“To mellow you out.”
“For what I have in mind, nothing will mellow me out. Last chance to back out, lamb. You can go with Uncle Charlie or you can leave with me, now, and come to your slaughter.”
She looked him square in eye. “I’m with you. How do they say it in poker? I’m all in.”
“We’ll see about that.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
KATIE’S HEART FLUTTERED as Alex handed her into the limousine. What fate had she just damned herself to? As the vehicle pulled out smoothly into the night, she felt like she was on a one-way ride to some dark place from which she would never return. It didn’t help matters that Alex was sitting back in the shadows across from her looking positively demonic. But dammit, the guy needed someone in his life to be loyal to him for once. To have his back. To believe in him. And she was a sucker for hard-luck cases. Especially when they came packaged in such a gorgeous, hot man.
“What was all that stuff with Uncle Charlie about?” she tried again.
Nothing. No answer at all. Alex merely stared at her broodingly.
“Was he trying to recruit you or something?”
Again, nothing. Her trepidation climbed. The limo pulled up in front of his condo and Alex ordered her to wait in the car. He got out and looked up and down the street carefully before gesturing for her to join him. The limo pulled away quietly, and they were alone.
Alex gripped her arm tightly as he guided her inside. Was he afraid she’d bolt, or was he already asserting the dominance she expected from him tonight?
The elevator ride was silent. Tense. He entered a lengthy number sequence on the keypad outside his front door and passed a magnetic card through the slot. A red light illuminated.
“Come into my lair, little lamb,” he muttered darkly. “Uncle Charlie’s a bastard to sacrifice you to me, by the way.”
Sacrifice me? Huh?
They stepped into the open space, and there was no sign of Sister Mary Harris. Katie followed Alex to Dawn’s bedroom and the nun was asleep in the bed beside Dawn’s crib. The woman had a hand stretched out through the bars and resting on Dawn’s mattress.
Alex explained, “Sister’s as deaf as a post with her hearing aids out. She’ll feel Dawn cry with her hand.”
As he backed out of the bedroom, he scooped the twin hearing aids off the dresser top and pocketed them.
“Alex!” she exclaimed softly.
“You’ll thank me later when you need to scream.”
He pulled the door shut behind them.
Knees quivering more than a little, she followed him back into the dark living room. As he moved to the bar and poured himself a glass of whiskey, she asked, “Are you going to hurt me?”
“Do you want me to?”
“We already established that I don’t have any idea what I’m getting myself into. I have no clue what’s going to happen tonight. I only know I want to give you the same kind of pleasure you’ve given me.”
He raised his glass to her in a silent toast and drained its contents. He untied his bow tie and let it hang around his neck as he stalked toward her, danger radiating from him.
“Do you, um, want me to take off my dress?” she asked nervously.
He paused directly in front of her. He flipped his right hand down sharply, and a small knife was abruptly in his fist. Where in the hell had that come from? She sucked i
n a sharp breath as he lifted the blade, running the flat of it along her shoulder to the neck of her dress.
No tenderness whatsoever was present in him. He was angry. Furious even. His expression was closed. Crud. What was it going to take to break through his walls to the man she knew—well, okay, that she hoped—was underneath it all?
With a quick flip of his wrist, he slashed the neck of her dress, never even nicking her skin. The dress sagged, revealing her left breast. Tension abruptly hung thickly in the air between them. This wasn’t about love then. This was war.
Her nipple puckered hard in the cool air, and she gasped. But she held her ground and didn’t run screaming. Frankly, she was pretty proud of herself.
He reached across her and sliced the other side of the neck, and the black flap that made up the halter front fell to her waist, leaving her entire chest naked to his gaze.
“Unzip the skirt,” Alex ordered, his voice thick with desire.
It was nice to know he wasn’t completely unaffected. In the past, he’d held himself so totally aloof from their sexual encounters she could scream. She had to get him to let go of whatever he was holding inside, no matter how over her head this got.
She reached around behind her waist and unzipped the dress’s skirt slowly. If she was going to seduce him, then she might as well play the siren, right? She gave a single, sexy tug and the fabric slithered down over her hips to the floor, leaving her standing in a pool of black silk, wearing only a thong and high heels.
Alex walked all the way around her slowly, looking but not touching. Although the heat of his stare felt like it was going to incinerate her at any second. She reached for that naughty part of herself that had enjoyed wearing slinky lingerie for him in that hotel room before. After all, she was the one who’d insisted on this. She was sick of being a little girl. Sick of being discounted because of her naïveté. It was high time she acted out her secret fantasies. She’d known from the moment she’d met Alex that he was the kind of man who would go to as dark a place as she could imagine. Darker.
When he was standing in front of her once more, he reached around her head to remove the clip holding her hair in its French twist. Her hair tumbled down around her shoulders in thick waves and she couldn’t resist giving her head a shake.
“Don’t move,” he ordered.
She stood there, a few wayward curls half across her face, and was surprised when he pulled out his cell phone and took a picture of her. He stepped back a few paces and took several more pictures of her in all her topless glory. He moved behind her and snapped her from behind. Given how skimpy her thong was, the shot wouldn’t leave much to the imagination.
“Bend down,” he ordered coldly, “and grab your ankles.”
Embarrassment sprang to her cheeks in a hot rush. He was back there with his camera, and such a pose would be seriously lewd. So. This is war to him, too, is it?
“Do it,” he bit out.
Eyes narrowed, she bent down brazenly and grabbed her ankles. She’d asked for him to bust through her sexual boundaries. She couldn’t very well complain now that he was doing it. But then his finger hooked beneath the narrow thong and, crap, lifted it aside, revealing her most private parts. She hadn’t the slightest doubt he was photographing those, as well. Serious doubt about her odds of winning this private war with him assailed her. She was a McCloud, dammit. And win or lose, McClouds never surrendered. She would see this thing through no matter what.
He moved back in front of her. “Unlike me, you still have a reputation to concern yourself with. If you ever want to teach again, you need these pictures to stay safely on my cell phone. Also, unlike me, you still have a soul.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” she blurted.
“A person with no reputation and no soul is rather more difficult to blackmail.”
She stared, shocked. “You plan to blackmail me? But I’ve got nothing you want. You’re rich.”
“I want your silence. These pictures are my insurance.”
“Alex, what goes on in the bedroom stays in the bedroom. I would never kiss and tell.”
He laughed shortly. “You’ll do a lot more than kiss tonight, lamb.”
She spotted a chink in his armor and pounced. “So far, you’re all talk and no action.”
That got a real laugh out of him. “Ahh, sweet Katie. You never fail to surprise me. You should be scared to death right about now, and yet you’re goading me on. You’re either incredibly brave or incredibly foolish.”
She was undoubtedly both. Cocking her right hip and planting her fist on it, she demanded, “You gonna get busy, or am I taking charge around here?”
Abruptly serious, he snapped, “On your knees.”
She did as he ordered and was not surprised when he reached for his zipper. He might consider it a win to get her in this position, but, frankly, she chalked it up as one point for her. She reached up and pushed aside his hands, a little surprised when he let her.
She slid his zipper down slowly, blatantly teasing him as she revealed his black silk boxers. Silk, huh? More of a hedonist than he let on, perchance? She reached through the flap to grasp his member, which was wide-awake. Hot. Hard. Satiny. She ran her fingernails down its length and was gratified by the growl her nails elicited.
She pushed the fabric aside and examined his male parts closely. She’d grown up with a bunch of boys and wasn’t a stranger to their equipment. But this time, it was hers to play with. She explored every inch of him, learning his textures.
She knew how to proceed with a blow job in theory, but her experience with it was nil. But she wasn’t about to give away her nervousness to the enemy at this juncture. Hesitantly, she leaned forward to taste him, and Alex sucked in a sharp breath. That was more like it. She was getting good and tired of all his damned self-control. She ran her tongue around the tip of him and then along his length. She swirled her tongue around the base of his penis and then back up the shaft.
His hand plunged into her hair at the back of her head and he pressed her down over him; her lips slid over his flesh. Her mouth filled with his heat, and she was gratified when Alex sucked in another, even sharper breath. She pulled back slightly and then slid forward again. She repeated the process until Alex was groaning aloud. She remembered what it had felt like when he’d driven her slowly out of her mind, and she did her best to return the favor.
Without warning, his hands clamped on the sides of her head and he pulled out of her. “Enough,” he ground out.
Having to fight for control, was he? Excellent! Score another hit for her.
He pulled her to her feet and backed her up quickly. The cold quartz of the wet bar touched her hips. He hoisted her up onto the hard surface and pushed her down onto her back. He shoved her thighs apart. It seemed a little high for him to reach her with his—
Oh. He bent down toward her with his face. His mouth closed on her female flesh, and she cried out in shock and pleasure and embarrassment. But then his tongue swirled around the center of her throbbing lust and all sense of propriety evaporated.
He pushed her legs high and lifted his mouth away from her enough to mutter, “Grab your ankles.”
It was a good thing she stretched as part of her regular fitness routine. But still, she felt wanton in the extreme clasping her ankles with her shoes still in those naughty stilettos. The position opened her entirely to his mouth and tongue. The wet, swirling, plunging heat of it brought her to the verge of climax almost immediately. She bit her lower lip hard, doing her best not to scream. A nun was sleeping in the next room, for crying out loud.
“You think you can hold out against me?” Alex growled against her inner thigh. “Think again.” His mouth closed on her pulsing flesh, biting and sucking right to the edge of pain. She lurched up off the marble as the orgasm slammed into her, crying out into her forearm to muffle the noise.
“Again,” he ordered.
She was surprised when his mouth closed on h
er, and in a matter of seconds another orgasm shot through her with the violence of a lightning bolt.
He grasped her thighs, pulling her forward on the slippery quartz, then grabbed her around the waist. He lifted her off the bar and turned her around, shoving her down over the back of the couch with her rear end high and vulnerable in the air.
The embarrassment started to return, but then something smooth and hot and throbbing pressed against her wet, wanting flesh. She braced herself for impact, but instead the invasion of her body by his happened by slow, maddening degrees.
Alex was prodigiously endowed, and he seemed to take pleasure in letting her take the full measure of him inch by torturously slow inch. The sensation was incredible. Her internal muscles stretched to accommodate him, pulsing around the invader, clasping at his flesh convulsively. He withdrew just as slowly, tantalizing her with a feeling of loss so acute she wanted to sob. Dammit. Score one for Alex.
He slammed into her all the way to the hilt, until he touched her womb he was so deep inside her. She cried out in relief.
He withdrew again, and this time, she pleaded, “Again. Fill me again.” Crap. She was losing control. Handing too much power over to him.
He slammed into her again, and she groaned. Over and over he filled her to bursting, his hips thrusting hard against her. She started to shudder, with her whole body this time, her muscles tightening and releasing in time with his invasions. The shudders built into a giant convulsion around him, and she shouted her release into the seat cushions.
He stood her upright and scooped her up in his arms, almost as if he knew she was too overwhelmed by the series of violent orgasms she’d just experienced to stand on her own. He carried her swiftly down the hallway to his bedroom and kicked the door shut behind him. He let her body slide down his, and she craved every masculine inch of him. He was still fully dressed—except for his open fly—and the starched tuxedo was rough against her highly sensitized skin.
“I can’t get enough of you,” she gasped.
He shoved her up against the wall, and she grabbed his shoulders and wrapped her right leg around his hips. He lifted her by the ass, and she wrapped her other leg around him as he entered her again. The hard wall gave her no recourse from his deep thrusts, and she shuddered in ecstasy with each one. He spun away from the wall and sat her on some sort of vanity. His arms swept everything on its surface to the floor with a crash, and this position gave him the right angle to press deep, then deeper still into her.
