by Mary Buckham
She slanted him a glance over her shoulder, one filled with teasing laughter. "I beg your pardon. I didn't mean to bother you."
Like hell she didn't.
She ran the tip of her tongue across her lower lip and he thought he'd have to beg.
"If I'm standing too close I can always move away."
Not in this lifetime. Not while his hand still rested on her lower back, a position he knew they were both excruciatingly aware of.
"Just do your job and I'll do mine."
He could have sworn her eyes sparkled right before she turned to greet another man who bent too low over her hand. Didn't these guys have wives or mistresses to get home to? How was he going to survive if she decided to dance with a few of them when he was ready to lunge for their jugulars as it was?
It might have been less than an hour, though it felt like a lifetime, when the last stragglers were greeted and charmed. By that time Lucius felt like chewing glass. If he didn't know better, he could have sworn Jane was purposely brushing against him, rubbing her sleeve against his arm, stepping back so her foot tangled with his. Either that or she'd become terribly clumsy.
Did the woman know how many eyes were watching her every move, his every reaction? Even Tarkioff had given him a warning glance or two, which did not bode well for diplomatic relations. As the receiving line broke up and guests began to mingle freely in the minutes before dinner, Lucius knew he'd have to make his move.
He waited for his opening, when Tarkioff was snared by the Minister of Transportation and Jane had stepped away from his side. It was now or never.
"Miss Rostov." He spoke the words loud enough to turn several heads. Good, the last thing he wanted was the gossips to wag about private assignations. "If you have a few minutes we could discuss that earlier problem you had."
He watched her eyes widen, as if figuring out what game he was up to, yet her voice was poised and cool as she replied, "Problem?"
"Yes, the one we discussed last night."
There were several if he recalled, but it was a better bluff then none at all.
"Oh, that problem." She gave him a high-wattage smile that did not bode well for his equilibrium. "You want to talk. Now?"
If the truth was known—no. What he wanted to do was drag her from the hall, count the seconds before he could get that excuse for a dress off her and bury himself deep inside her. But somehow he didn't think the assembled guests needed to know that much.
"Now would be a good time." He saw the wariness in her gaze increase. Good. He needed her wary.
"Fine, Major McConneghy. You lead and I'll follow."
That would be a first. "Right this way."
He placed his hand beneath her elbow, not trusting himself further, keeping his gaze focused straight ahead and not on the curve of her cheek in profile, and definitely not on the line separating black dress from creamy white skin along her back.
It was the longest ten yards he ever walked.
Jane wondered how long they'd be able to keep up the facade of polite acquaintances. Not long, she guessed by the look in Lucius's silver-smoked eyes and the way her heart skipped from double time to triple time. She'd thought the stories she'd read of lust and temptation had been just that, stories. Now she knew otherwise.
They drew near a set of open French doors, the night air offering a faint breeze, cool against her flushed skin.
"This is far enough," he said.
"What did you want to talk about?" She waited until they were standing side by side but not one second more. Not when her nerves felt as taut as they could.
"Whatever it is you think you're doing, stop it."
"You want me to stop greeting the king's guests?"
"Damn it, that's not what I meant and you know it."
So the always cool and collected major was getting a little testy. Maybe the dress was a good idea after all.
"Maybe you'd better clarify what you mean." She sugar-coated the words but they were far from sweet.
He gave her a look that would have withered an old shoe, but Jane was finding herself much tougher than leather. "You know exactly what I mean. Stop doing what you're doing."
"Meaning what, exactly?"
"Brushing up against me. Giving me those come-hither looks."
"Come-hither looks?"
"The ones over your shoulder and when you cast your eyelashes down."
Oh, that was good. She didn't even know she was doing that, but now she could use it on purpose.
"You mean like this?" It must have worked because he I looked downright thunderous. She'd hoped for tempted ' more than murderous, but she still had a full evening ahead of her. She could work on it.
"That's exactly what I mean. Stop it before you have Tarkioff and half his country calling for my blood."
"Is that what you're afraid of?"
She wondered why she'd never thought of gray as a hot color.
"It's what you should be afraid of. We're not playing games. There's too much at stake, including your life."
"I thought we were discussing your life."
He suddenly looked weary. An unfair tactic—she knew she could fight his anger, but not this.
"I'm more worried about your life." He took a deep breath, one that exposed the gun in the holster he always wore. That brought reality into crystal-clear focus for her. His reality.
She looked toward the crowded room, seeing only a swirl of color, hearing only a wash of conversations.
"I mean it, Jane, tone down the sex thing."
"Sex thing?" Now she sounded like a harlot for hire. She'd been after seduction, not sex. Well, maybe not till later.
"I don't think you want the king knocking on your door tonight."
She wanted that about as much as she wanted to be having this conversation, but she held her tongue. He was ruining everything.
"If you don't stop, that's what you're going to get."
"I thought you said you'd protect me?" She threw it in his face, keeping her voice pitched low so no one would overhear, but loud enough to make her point.
"Don't be an idiot. There are things even I can't protect against. Why do you think I've kept you as far away from him as possible?"
Great, first she was a harlot, an inept one if all she managed was anger for her effort, and now she was a fool. But, perhaps, that's exactly what she'd been: a complete and total idiot. It was as plain as the pattern on the parquet floor that the man she'd been trying to interest was about as interested as a Great Dane was in a beagle.
Words caught in her throat. She would not apologize, at least not for trying to be something she was not. Instead she straightened her shoulders and made sure her smile was firmly in place. "Not because you demand it, but because it's what I choose to do, I will endeavor to behave myself."
He slanted her another of his blazing looks, one tinged with something else. "It's not a joke here."
"Believe me, the last thing I feel like doing right now is joking."
His expression became a little less glowering. "It's for your own good."
How many times had she heard that growing up? It was the litany of her childhood, right along with "don't cause any problems," "behave yourself" and "not now." She wondered if McConneghy was a mind reader to so unerringly zero in on the phrases that poked like hot needles in her memory.
Unclenching fingers wrapped so tightly around her beaded purse she was afraid the beads would crack, she was pleased her voice remained calm. "If you're done with your lecture I think I should get back to the king's side."
Not that that's where she wanted to go. No, she wanted to run as far and fast away from her debacle as seductress as possible. But like so many other things she'd discovered since waking in a strange room less than a month ago, she didn't have much choice in the matter.
"I'll be at your side the whole evening."
She wondered if he meant that to reassure or threaten.
"Right. You have your job to do and I ha
ve mine."
He laid his hand across her arm. Not a heavy hand, but the lightest of touches, the type of touch she'd thought about in the long hours of the night.
"For what it's worth." He paused, as if struggling to find the right words. "You look very beautiful tonight."
Crumbs to the starving, she thought, sure if she didn't leave soon her mouth would tremble.
"How kind of you." She moved away.
Lucius felt as if he'd kicked a small and helpless creature, but for the life of him, he couldn't understand why. Minutes ago she was twisting him and every man with blood in his veins around her little finger. Now she looked just as seductive, just as enchanting, but with a fragile air at odds with the way she moved through the crowds, in that in-your-face dress she wore like a second skin.
He continued to watch her through what must have been the longest dinner on record, and he'd sat through enough diplomatic meals to be a good judge. She remained poised, nodding her head here and smiling there as if she had been born to the role of a king's wife. In reality, she was doing a better job than the real Elena Rostov, who would have looked bored or mutinous by now. But Jane had retreated somewhere, behind a facade and damn if he didn't want to break through it.
But wasn't she doing exactly what he'd asked of her? Had asked of her since she'd found herself in an impossible situation with no way out? Never once had she thrown a fit. No hysterics. No recriminations. And what had he given her? Orders, which she tended to ignore, suggestions, which were about as effective, and the possibility that at any moment a total stranger might kill her.
She laughed at something Eustace Tarkioff was telling her and Lucius felt the twist of jealousy in his gut. The king leaned toward her and Lucius set the crystal goblet he was holding down, very, very carefully.
With a grim smile he wondered what his superiors would say if he lurched across the table, hauled the king from his chair and planted a fist smack in the middle of that orthodontically perfect grin? So much for putting the mission first. Right then he didn't care a rat's tail about the mission, or about the strategic value of the country's relationship to the U.S.
Nothing mattered except getting Jane away from that crowd of people and into his arms, finding a way to take that lost look from her eyes, replacing it with a real smile reserved for him alone. That's when he knew he'd lost all sense of perspective, all need for the distance a mission required.
He lifted his goblet and sipped, tasting nothing.
Jane knew if Tarkioff looked down the front of her dress one more time, she was not going to be responsible for her actions. Red wine down the front of his snowy-white uniform? The remnants of her uneaten meal in his lap? Maybe a fork in an anatomically vulnerable spot?
The old Jane would never have dared, but then the old Jane never had to ward off unwanted glances. She'd never had to ward off glances at all, come to think of it. And the new Jane didn't want to do it now, not while her emotions still felt ground into the dirt by Lucius McConneghy.
And then the man had the audacity to sit at the table and watch her as if she was the only person in the room. Which was ridiculous when you considered how crowded the place was. But every time she glanced his way, she caught the gleam of those intense eyes impaling her, as if waiting for her to screw up—again. Didn't he know she was only human? So she'd made a mistake with the dress, with the whole seduction scene. That didn't mean he had to treat her like an incompetent.
Didn't he understand her nerves were at the breaking point? Or was that what he was waiting for? She closed her eyes with a silent sigh, reminding herself that if she could sit through the yearly budget committee at the library she could survive this dinner.
And then it was over. Blessedly over, as first the king rose to his feet, extending his hand, which she had no choice but to accept, telling herself it would be very inappropriate to cringe as his moist hand closed around hers. She actually felt a real smile as he led her toward the larger ballroom, with its glittering chandeliers and space, lots and lots of space. Here, she thought she might be able to breathe a little, force a little distance between herself and the man she supposedly would be marrying in less than a week and a half.
But she'd forgotten about the dancing. The first strains of piano and violins reached her just as the king pulled her into his arms, until she thought she would choke on the scent of aftershave and hair unguent. Now she worried about losing what dinner she had eaten all over his pristine uniform. Another faux pas for sure, earning, no doubt, another "behave yourself' lecture from McConneghy.
She almost grinned at that, sure if she didn't find some glimmer of humor in the situation, she'd race screaming from the room in a matter of seconds. Or less.
The room swam around her, not in the way of fairy-tale princesses, but more like a nightmare that wouldn't end. The king's soft, meaty hand sweated against her back, bodies brushed past them, conversations ebbed and flowed. This should have been a magic night, might have been if the right man had held her in his arms. But if there was one thing Jane was coming to expect in this unreal situation, it was that McConneghy would have his own agenda.
Then, as if her thoughts bid him to her side, Lucius was there, murmuring polite noises to Tarkioff, his gaze molten on hers. She felt his arms steel around her before she could brace herself for her reaction. An automatic shift into overdrive, with breath backing up in her lungs, her cheeks flaming and her heart doing the rumba, no matter what beat was being played in the background.
"Don't look like that." McConneghy murmured it against her hair.
"Like what?"
"Like you're ready to bolt. I don't plan to eat you."
A shame, her rebellious thoughts interjected before she could control them. A crying shame.
"I don't run." She said it with her librarian's diction.
He offered his predator's grin in return. "If you did, I'd come after you."
Dangerous ground. Very dangerous ground, but the new Jane replied before she could stop. "And?"
"You like playing with fire, don't you?" His voice sounded like molten lava sliding across her senses.
She felt the lightest of touches as his thumb grazed her back, tiny pinpricks of sensations streaming up her spine, along her nerve endings, across her skin. How could so simple a touch make her want to arch and rub, push closer for more and yet bolt at the same time?
She cast her glance downwards, knowing he'd see too much if he looked closely.
"Now I've frightened you."
Funny, she realized with a start, that was the one thing she'd never felt around him. She'd felt fear, but because of the situation, not the man. Though she'd felt other, rawer, more primitive emotions—wariness, kin to awareness only deeper—when he'd looked at her as he was looking now. As if there was no one else in the universe except the two of them, and time held no meaning.
"I've never been afraid of you."
The words were honest. Though there could be a hundred different definitions of afraid, as she knew he knew when he grinned and answered. "You should be. You very well should be."
She wanted to respond, even if the words clogged in her throat, but there was no time. In the space between one dance step and the next everything changed.
There was a sound, a loud boom, like fireworks let off nearby. A woman screamed. A glass was dropped, shattering against the floor. She heard it all in the distance, her whole attention focused on the man before her, watching his face change, his mantle of control descend as sure as a suit of armor. His hands tightened fractionally around her—instinct or training? she wondered—before he was dragging her toward the side of the room.
It was happening again.
"Do exactly as I say. No questions. No arguments."
"But what—"
"No questions." He turned from her, nodding toward someone in the distance, the crowd around them already milling like frightened sheep. Another explosion sounded outside, followed by the sounds of men shouting, boote
d footsteps running.
"I want you to go straight to my room."
"Your room?"
"Mine. You'll be safer there. Don't stop for anyone. For any reason."
"But—"
"Do as I tell you."
There was no gentleness in this man. He was all warrior now, and she was part of his mission.
"All right."
She thought he might have looked relieved, but the impression came and went so quickly it may have only been her imagination.
"I want you to lock the door behind you and make sure all other doors into the room are locked, too."
"Okay." He was scaring her now with the intensity of his look, the tightness of his grip on either arm.
"I'll send one of my men along with you. He'll be stationed outside the door until I relieve him."
Until, or if? she wanted to ask, but swallowed the thought. That and the queasy things it did to her stomach.
"Do not open the door to anyone. Not to Tarkioff. Not to his brother. Not to anyone except myself."
She nodded her head, aware the hysteria in the room around her was building.
"Do you understand?"
"Yes."
"And you'll do exactly as I said?"
She might have been afraid, but she was not an idiot.
"Of course I will."
He smiled, the briefest of expressions and one she knew she'd carry in her memory forever. Another man materialized at his side, one as controlled, as intense as he.
"Keep her safe." McConneghy spoke to the other before turning back to her, pitching his voice low. If she thought he was going to leave her with some warm and touching sentiment, she was wrong.
"If you need it there's a pistol in the nightstand by the bed. You'll have to click the safety off before you use it."
Since Jane's experience with guns was limited to what she'd watched on TV she only nodded her head. If it came to her having to use one, she was in deep trouble. But now didn't seem to be the time to point out another of her shortcomings.
"Fine. I understand." She didn't really. Not about the gun at least, but she did about other things. Like the fact that McConneghy was leaving her to head toward the explosions, not away from them. The man had to be certifiable insane. Also brave, responsible and determined, yes, but definitely certifiably insane.
